RURAL    LETTERS 


AND  OTHER  RECORDS  OF 


THOUGHT   AT   LEISURE, 


WRITTEN  IN  THE 


INTERVALS  OF  MORE  HURRIED    LITERARY  LABOR, 


' 


'ARKER  WILLIS, 


THE  VOLUME  CONTAINS  "LETTERS  FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE/'  "  OPE1* 
AIR  MUSINGS  IN  THE  CITY,"    "  INVALID    RAMBLES    IN  GER- 
MANY," "  LETTERS  FROM  WATERING-PLACES,"  ETC. 


"  The  forcing-garden,  with  its  snowy  roof 
Shuts  off  the  snow-quilt,  and,  of  timely  sleep, 
Robs  the  sun-weary  soil.     In  costly  flowers 
The  o'ertasked  juices  languish  to  the  sun, 
And  fragrantly  breathe  thro'  the  bright-dyed  lips 
Till. the  rich  bloom  seems  Nature's.    But,  when  Spring 
Leaves  the  worn  hot-bed  idle,  and  the  winds 
Of  summor  with  the  cooling  dews  stray  in, 
The  gla/  soil  joyfully  its  trick  unlearns, 
And,  in  pale  violets  and  daisies  small, 
Bre>-  nes  its  mere  bliss  in  sunshine." 


AUBURN    AND    ROCHESTER: 
ALDEN    AND    BEARDSLET. 
1850. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1 849,  by 
BAKER  AND  SCRIBNER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  fcr  tha 
Southern  District  of  New- York. 


Bencroft 


DEDICATORY  LETTER. 


TO    IMOGEN. 

M\r  SWEET  DAUGHTER  I 

The  Letters  in  this  volume  which  describe  your  birthplace- 
mere  pulse-countings  as  they  are,  in  the  way  of  literary  records — 
should  '  *e  dedicated  to  you,  if  printed  at  all ;  and  I  had  therefore 
written  your  name  after  the  title-page  just  ready  for  tne  press. 
A  joyous  laugh  from  you,  at  play  with  your  doll  in  an  adjoining 
room,  reached  my  ear  a  moment  since,  however,  and  suggested 
to  me  the  time  that  must  elapse  before  you  could  read  so  un- 
eventful a  book  understandingly,  and  the  necessity  there  would 
be,  even  then,  that  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  written 
should  be  somewhat  explained  to  you.  I  felt — as  a  man  fond  of 
his  grounds  might  do,  who  should  see  his  favorite  tree  judged  of 
by  a  single  view  at  noon — a  wish  that  it  might  be  seen,  also,  with 
the  shadows  falling  earlier  and  later.  The  interest  with  which 
these  simple  letters  from  Glenmary  may  be  read  by  you,  must 
depend  much  upon  your  knowing  over  what  ground,  in  my  own 
mind,  this  brief  passage  of  my  life  threw  its  influences.  If  I  had 
any  of  that  instinctive  feeling,  which  we  sometimes  vaguely  trust, 
that  I  should  be  here,  when  you  are  grown  to  womanhood,  to 
my  to  you  what  I  have  taken  my  pen  to  writ*,  I  should  still  let 


Vl  TO  IMOGEN. 

the  dedication,  of  this  least-labored  yet  favorite  volume,  to  my 
beloved  child,  stand  simply  with  her  name. 

At  the  tune  of  your  birth,  I  had  lived  four  years  at  Glenmaiy ; 
and  when — pacing  the  walk  in  front  of  my  cottage,  beneath  the 
stars  of  a  night  of  June — I  heard  your  first  faint  cry,  I  recog- 
nized, in  my  tearful  thanks  to  God,  that  a  drop  was  overflowingly 
added,  to  a  cup  of  happiness  already  swelling  to  the  brim.  For 
enjoyment  of  the  rural  life  I  found  so  delightful,  I  had,  it  is  true, 
made  somewhat  the  preparation  with  which  one  sleeps  in  a  house 
that  the  haunting  of  some  nameless  spirit  has  made  untenantable 
by  others — searching  first,  with  the  candle  of  experience,  every 
apartment  besides  the  one  I  intended  to  occupy.  I  had  tried  life 
in  every  shape  which,  if  left  untried,  might  fret  imagination.  I 
had  studied  human  nature  under  all  the  changes  which  can  be 
wrought  by  differences  of  climate,  rank,  culture  and  association. 
My  demands,  for  happiness,  had  closed  in  and  concentrated  upon 
my  own  heart,  the  farther  I  went  and  the  more  changes  I  tried. 
I  came  to  Glenmary,  absolute  in  my  conviction  that  I  brought 
with  me,  or  could  receive  there,  from  God,  all  the  material  requi- 
site for  my  best  enjoyment  of  existence.  In  my  five  years'  trial 
of  this  upshot  of  experiments  in  happiness,  every  hour  wedded 
my  love  to  it  more  strongly.  Even  the  anxiety  with  which  the 
loss  of  our  small  competency  clouded  the  first  year  that  the  sweet 
tfcread  of  your  life  was  braided  through — even  that  harsh  trouble, 
and  the  disasters  and  broken  reliances  which  followed  close  upon 
its  heels,  and  finally  drove  me  back  to  the  life  I  had  rejected, 
failed  to  touch,  while  I  could  cling  to  the  hope  of  remaining  there, 
the  essential  elements  of  my  endearment  to  that  calm  paradise. 
Misfortune,  that  changes  the  looks  of  men,  my  dear  Imogen,  leaves 


TO    IMOGEN.  Vii 

he  stars  looking  as  kindly  down,  and  the  trees  and  flowers  an- 
swering the  eye  as  unreluctantly. 

You  can  understand,  from  this,  how,  in  the  life  pictured  in 
these  letters,  lay  a  frame- work  of  nurture  for  yourself t  the  much 
pondered  promises  of  which  were  the  ties  hardest  to  sunder.  In 
all  my  observation  of  your  sex,  I  had  so  learned  the  value  of 
character  formed  under  the  influences  of  refined  rural  life,  and 
taking  its  thought-pressure  and  guidance,  meantime,  from  those 
minds,  only,  over  which  God  has  breathed  the  awe  of  parental 
responsibility.  The  impressible  and  flexible  nature  of  woman  so 
requires,  for  the  preservation  of  its  individuality,  an  isolation  from 
the  mixed  influences  and  assimilating  observances  of  a  city.  A 
dew-drop,  given  to  the  exhaling  sun  with  its  rounded  pearl-shape 
unswayed  but  by  breath  from  Heaven,  and  another,  shaken  from 
its  leaf-shelter,  and  flung  into  a  stream  to  flow  on  and  waste,  un- 
distinguishable  from  turbid  waters,  are  not  more  different  in 
purity  and  beauty,  than  the  same  character  may  be  made  by 
these  differences  of  nurture.  Glenmary,  after  your  birth,  seemed 
to  me  to  have  been  fore-chosen  by  my  good  angel,  as  the  cradle 
and  nursery  I  should  want  for  you.  With  images  of  my  fair 
child,  tossing  her  sunny  locks  in  unschooled  grace  to  the  wind,  I 
had  peopled  all  the  wild  wood-walks  above  the  brook ;  the  lawns 
and  fields  along  the  river  were  play-grounds  and  rambling  places 
for  a  blue-eyed  and  infantile  type  of  an  angel  mother ;  the  trees 
seemed  spreading  their  shadows  in  conscious  preparation;  the 
shrubs  were  planted  to  keep  pace  with  her  growth ;  and  my  own 
onward  life — so  cheered  and  beguiled,  so  graced  and  supplied 
with  sweetest  company  and  occupation— was  forecast  in  a  far- 
welcomed  future.  Do  you  not  see  how,  without  knowledge  of 


fill  TO    IMOGEN. 


these  dream-peoplings,  you  could  scarce  read  my  portrayings,  of 
that  relinquished  life,  with  a  full  understanding  of  my  value 
of  it? 

This  five  years'  oasis  of  country  existence,  gave  shape  and  force 
to  another  sentiment  that  has  always  struggled  within  me,  and, 
(fancy-pricing  of  my  saleable  commodities  though  it  seem,)  I  will 
venture  to  mention  it — for,  in  imagining  you  as  reading  this 
volume,  by-and-by,  it  is  a  view  of  myself  that  I  like  to  think  may 
grow  out  of  the  perusal.     I  scarce  know  how  to  express  it,  how- 
ever ;  for,  sure  as  I  am  of  conveying  the  feeling  of  every  man 
who  has  ever  parcelled  his  free  thoughts  into  "  goods  and  groce- 
ries," it  is  difficult  to  phrase  without  misconveyance  of  meaning. 
If  you  have  ever  seen  a  field  of  broom- corn — the  most  careless 
branching  and  free  swaying  of  all  the  products  of  a  summer — 
and  can  fancy  the  contrast,  in  its  destiny,  between  sweeping  the 
pure  air  with  the  wind's  handling,  and  sweeping  what  it  more 
usefully  may,  when  tied  up  for  handling  as  brooms,  you  can  un- 
derstand the  difference  I  feel,  between  using  my  thoughts  at  my 
pleasure,  as  in  country  life,  and  using  them  for  subsistence  as  in 
my  present   profession.     How  much,   and  what  quality,  of  an 
author,  I  might  have  been  from  choice,  the  tone  of  these  Letters, 
I  mean  to  say,  very  nearly  expresses.     I  do  not  intend  any  com 
parative  disparagement  of  what  I  have  written  upon  compulsion 
The  hot  needle  through  the  eye  of  the  goldfinch  betters  his  sing 
ing,  they  say.     Only  separate,  if  with  this  hint  you  can,  what  I 
have  done  as  mental  toil,  from  what  I  might  have  written  had  J 
been  a  thought-free  farmer,  with  books,  country  leisure,  and  lib 
erty  to  pick,  with  the  perspective  bettering  of  second  though' 
from  the  brain's  many-mooded  vagaries. 


TO  IMOGEN.  ix 

A  man  may  be  excused  for  wishing  not  to  be  misrepresented 
to  his  child,  and  I  have  thus  tried  to  make  certain  that  my 
own  writings,  at  least,  shall  speak  truly  of  me  to  my  daughter. 
The  perversions  and  misrepresentations  which  follow  and  bark  at 
one's  progress,  as  curs  chase  a  rail-train  through  a  village  street, 
I  have  no  need  to  guard  against,  for  they  will  be  outrun  and 
silenced  if  I  am  gone  from  you  when  you  read  this — harmless,  of 
course,  if  I  am  here.  And  now,  my  little  unconscious  target,  this 
arrow  of  twelve  years'  flight  must  be  sped  from  the  string ;  and, 
with  a  kiss,  presently,  of  which  you  will  be  far  from  knowing  the 
meaning  or  the  devotion,  I  will  imprint  a  prayer  upon  your  fore- 
head— that  the  shaft  may  find  the  heart  it  is  aimed  at,  as  well 
watched  over  and  as  blest  as  now,  whether  the  bow  that  sent  it 
be  still  bent  or  broken. 

Affectionately, 

N.  P.  WILLIS. 

March,  1849. 


CONTENTS. 

LETTERS    FROM    UNDER    A    BRIDGE. 


LETTER    I. 

Brook-hollow  of  Glemnary — Place  to  write — Rural  companions— Owa- 
ga  creek — Farmer's  life — Oxen  remembered.  ...  17-24 

LETTER    II. 

Assessor's  visit — Bridge  furniture — Rustic's  soliloquy — Where  are  we 
alone? — Simile  of  Talleyrand — The  beauties  of  country  life — 
Amende  honorable— The  oriole— Dog-wood  tree— Society  of  trees — 
Drawback  of  city  life. 25-32 

LETTER    III. 

Education  neglected — Available  knowledge — Tenantry  of  trees — Start 
for  fishing — Compulsion  of  talk — Influences  of  Nature.  -  -  33-40 

LETTER    IV. 

Attar-merchant  of  Constantinople— Bartlett,  the  scenist — Mental  tra- 
vel— Moneyless  millennium — Intellectual  age — Trout  fishing — 
Baiting  with  a  worm — The  first  trout — Similarity  of  country  to  city 
life. 41-50 

LETTER    V. 

Hay-making— Meadow  scenery— Sprague,  the  poet— Poets  and  finan- 
ciers— What  is  genius  ? — Lord  Durham  and  D'Israeli — Upholstery  of 
sunsets. 51-69 


CONTENTS. 


LETTER    VI. 

Invitation  to  the  country— Avon  Springs— Narrows  of  the  Susquehan- 

nah Mr.  Capability  Brown — Taste  as  a  profession — Inn  on  the  Sus- 

quehannah — Wealth  unclaimed— An  heiress.  -        -        -        -        6(    .  / 

LETTER    VII. 

Early  reviewing— Hotel  life— Scenery  of  the  Chemung— Homes  of 
of  genius. -  -  68-77 

LETTER    VIII. 
A  chance  call — Listeners  wanted — Adopted  by  a  cur.         -        -        78-84 

LETTER    IX. 

Estimate  of  criticism— Newness  of  impressions— Growing  gracefully 
old.  • 85-91 

LETTER    X. 

Harvesting — Good  phrases — The  Oinega — Grove  planting — The  lin- 
den-tree— Forest  sculpture.  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  92-98 

LETTER    XI. 

Old  man's  Utopia — Newspaper  fugitives — Sounds  of  Nature  and 
cities — Bird  music — Modified  benevolence.  -  ...  99-105 

LETTER    XII. 

Seclusion,  in  a  prospect — Steam-posting — Travelling  cottage — Route 
of  the  Susquehannah  to  the  Springs — Love  of  sunshine — "Wade's 
Poems — Epithalamium. 106-113 

LETTER    XIII. 

Visit  from  an  artist — Log-burning-  Campbell  and  Wyoming — Justice 
to  authors — Dawes  as  a  poet — American  estimate  of  English  au- 
thors—Walter Savage  Landor — Error  unconnected.  -  -  114-123 

LETTER    XIV. 

Country  fashionableness— Lumbering  Raftsmen  of  the  Susquehan- 
nah—Of  the  Delaware— Autumnal  changes.  ....  124-13P 


CONTENTS. 


LETTER    XV. 

Steamboating  on  the  Susquehannah— Sites  for  villas — Raft  running — 
Search  for  lodgings — Chance  bedfellow — Wyoming.  •  •  181-189 

LETTER    XVI. 

Magazine  writers — Advantage  of  criticism — Literary  fairness — Uni- 
versality of  English  literature — American  rehearsal  of  fame— Social 
relation  to  England. 140-146 

LETTER    XVII. 

Autumn  scenery— City  visitation — Wane  of  dandies— Criticisms  of 
manners — Cemeteries.  .......  147-154 

LETTER     XVIII. 

Streams  run  faster  at  night — Shopping  in  the  country — Portraits 
from  a  barn— Riddance  of  nuisance — Weather,  as  to  dignity.  -  156-162 

LETTER    XIX. 

Dickens — International  copyright — The  "Boz  ball" — Mrs.  Dickens — 
Speed  of  travel — Metropolitan  hotels — Greenough's  statue  of  Wash- 
ington— Chapman's  painting — House  of  Representatives — Philadel- 
phia.    168-174 

LETTER    XX. 

Landscape  gardening — Selection  of  farms — Value  of  neighbors — Econ- 
omy of  seclusion — Dress  hi  the  country — Grounds  and  shrubbery — 
Cheap  walks— Cottage  insoucieuse — True  country  freedom.  -  175-187 

LETTER    XXI. 

tlarket  for  poetry — Farming  and  authorship — City  residence — Subsist- 
ence of  authors— Uses  of  faults— Young  poets,  •»'  *  •  188-197 


THE    FOUR    RIVERS. 

IAQ  Hudson— The  Mohawk— The  Chenango— The  Susquehannah.    1 98-206 


xiy  CONTENTS. 

LETTER 

TO  THE  UNKNOWN  PURCHASER  AND  NEXT  OCCUPANT  OF  GLENMARY. 

Beauties  of  Glenmary— Spare  the  trees — The  venerable  toad — Favorite 
squirrels— Spare  the  birds.     ..    \.,;..v      -        -        -        -    207-212 


GLENMARY    POEMS. 

THOUGHTS  WHILE  MAKING  THE  GRAVE  OF  A  NEW-BORN  CHILD.    •       •  215 

THE  MOTHER  TO  HER  CHILD.      -  218 

A  THOUGHT  OVER  A  CRADLE.        -  .....  220 

THE  INVOLUNTARY  PRAYER  OF  HAPPINESS. 222 


OPEN-AIR    MUSINGS    IN    THE    CITY. 

Daguerreotype  of  Broadway — Spring  in  the  city — A  day  of  idling— The 
Battery,  as  a  promenade — The  wharves  on  Sunday — Sabbath 
walk — Confined  life — "Want  of  horses — Substitute  for  a  private 
yacht — Omnibus  luxury — Deferrings  of  sorrow — Griefs  recurren- 
-Evanescent  impressions.  '•-  -  -  -  -  -  225-252 


INVALID    RAMBLES    IN     GERMANY, 
IN  THE  SUMMER  OF  1845. 

Leipsic  cemetery  -  Funeral  customs — German  friendship — Hearing 
with  the  eye— Deaf  and  dumb  tutor — German  inattention  to  health — 
Leipsic  conservatory — Musical  composition — Music,  in  education — 
Concentration  of  coughing — Private  boxes  in  church — Goethe's  drink- 
ing-cellar — Napoleorfs  tent — Battle  field  of  Leipsic — Poniatow- 
ski — The  Fair  of  Leipsic— Apple  market — Theatrical  and  show- 
booths — Wadded  clothing — Pipe  celebrity — Garter  poetry — Re- 
source of  smoking — Jewish  costumes — Disguise  of  beards — Good 
middle-aged  caps — Hungarian  peddlers — German  students — Mere 


CONTENTS.  XV 


keepers-warm— Visit  to  Dresden— Women  harnessed  in  carts- 
Royal  palace — Manufacture  of  porcelain — Museum  of  china — His- 
torical museum — Mnemonics  for  history — Madonna  del  Sisto — 
Museum  of  beauty — Strauss's  concert — Tieck's  house — German 
substitutes  for  tea  and  coffee — Fair  at  Dresden — Supplementary 
coat-tails— Terrace  of  Bruhl— Berlin. 253-305 


LETTERS    FROM   WATERING-PLACES. 

LETTER    I. 

Sharon  Springs — Hotel — Sulphur  bathing — Indians  and  their  em- 
ployments. ....  809-313 

LETTER    II. 

Posthumous  revenges — Visit  to  Cooperstown — Cherry  Valley — Deriva- 
tion of  its  name — Otsego  Lake — Source  of  the  Susquehannah — Fen- 
imore  Cooper — His  residence — Drive  along  the  lake.  -  -  814-323 

LETTER    III. 

Lake  Ut-say-an-tha — The  Kobleskill — Novel  style  of  architecture — 
Kobleskill  graves. 324-328 

LETTER    IV. 
Sharon  convalescence — Indian  belle — Society  at  Sharoa    -        -    829-833 

LETTER    V. 

Trenton  Falls— Day  at  Albany— Anecdote  of  Morse— Valley  of  the 
Mohawk. 834-336 

LETTER    VI. 

Drive  to  Trenton  Falls — Seclusion  of  the  place — American  propensity 
for  white  paint — Landlord's  taste — Company  at  Trenton— Female 
invasion — Witty  inscription. 387-344 


xvi  CONTENTS. 


LETTER    VII. 

Geological  age  of  Trenton  Falls — Fossils  and  foreigners— Description 
of  the  Falls.  -  -  -  .  -  ^~  v  *  -  .  *  -  -  -  845-349 

LETTER    VIII. 

Co?tume  heightens  perspective — Military  tableau  vivant — Fashion 
of  hats  for  the  Falls— The  Falls  by  moonlight— Poetical  simili- 
tude— Baron  de  Trobriand. 850-857 


A     PLAIN    MAN'S    LOVE: 

A  STORY  WITHOUT  INCIDENT,  WETTTEN  IN  THE  LEISURE  OF  ILLNESS.       859-880 


LETTERS 

FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE 


LETTEK   I. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR:  Twice  in  the  year,  they  say,  the  farmer 
may  sleep  late  in  the  morning — between  hoeing  and  haying,  and 
between  harvest  and  thrashing.  If  I  have  not  written  to  you 
since  the  frost  was  out  of  the  ground,  my  apology  lies  distributed 
over  the  "  spring- work,"  in  due  proportions  among  ploughing, 
harrowing,  sowing,  plastering,  and  hoeing.  We  have  finished 
the  last — some  thanks  to  the  crows,  who  saved  us  the  labor  of 
one  acre  of  com,  by  eating  it  in  the  blade.  Think  what  tunes  we 
live  in,  when  even  the  crows  are  obliged  to  anticipate  their  in- 
come! 

When  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  write  to  you,  I  cast  about 
for  a  cool  place  in  the  shade — for,  besides  the  changes  which 
farming  works  upon  my  epidermis,  I  find  some  in  the  inner  man, 
one  of  which  is  a  vegetable  necessity  for  living  out-of-doors. 
Between  five  in  the  morning  and  "  flower-shut,"  I  feel  as  if  four 
walls  and  a  ceiling  would  stop  my  breath.  Very  much  to  the 
disgust  of  William,  (who  begins  to  think  it  was  infra  dig.  to 


18  LETTER   I. 

have  followed  such  a  hob-nail  from  London,)  I  showed  the  first 
symptom  of  this  chair-and-carpet  asthma,  by  ordering  my  break- 
fast under  a  balsam-fir.  Dinner  and  tea  soon  followed;  and 
now,  if  I  go  in-doors  by  daylight,  it  is  a  sort  of  fireman's  visit — 
in  and  out  with  a  long  breath.  I  have  worn  quite  a  dial  on  the 
grass,  working  my  chair  around  with  the  sun. 

"  If  ever  you  observed,"  (a  phrase  with  which  a  neighbor  of 
mine  ludicrously  prefaces  every  possible  remark,)  a  single  tree 
will  do  very  well  to  sit,  or  dine,  or  be  buried  under,  but  you  can 
not  write  in  the  shade  of  it.  Beside  the  sun-flecks  and  the  light 
all  around  you,  there  is  a  want  of  that  privacy,  which  is  neces- 
sary to  a  perfect  abandonment  to  pen  and  ink.  I  discovered 
this  on  getting  as  far  as  "  dear  Doctor,"  and,  pocketing  my  tools, 
strolled  away  up  the  glen  to  borrow  "  stool  and  desk  "  of  Nature. 
Half-open,  like  a  broad-leafed  book,  (green  margin  and  silver 
type,)  the  brook-hollow  of  Glenmary  spreads  wide  as  it  drops 
upon  the  meadow,  but  above,  like  a  book  that  deserves  its  fair 
margent,  it  deepens  as  you  proceed.  Not  far  from  the  road,  its 
little  rivulet  steals  forth  from  a  shadowy  ravine,  narrow  as  you 
enter,  then  widening  back  to  a  mimic  cataract ;  and  here,  a  child 
would  say,  is  fairy  parlor.  A  small  platform  (an  island  when 
the  stream  is  swollen)  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  fall,  carpeted  with 
the  fine  silky  grass  which  thrives  with  shade  and  spray.  The 
two  walls  of  the  ravine  are  mossy,  and  trickling  with  springs ; 
the  trees  overhead  interlace,  to  keep  out  the  sun ;  and  down 
comes  the  brook,  over  a  flight  of  precipitous  steps,  like  children 
bursting  out  of  school,  and,  after  a  laugh  at  its  own  tumble,  it 
falls  again  into  a  decorous  ripple,  and  trips  murmuring  away 
The  light  is  green,  the  leaves  of  the  overhanging  trees  look  trans 


THE  BROOK  HOLLOW  19 


lucent  above,  and  the  wild  blue  grape,  with  its  emerald  rings, 
has  wove  all  over  it  a  basket-lattice  so  fine,  that  you  would  think 
it  were  done  to  order — warranted  to  keep  out  the  hawk,  and  let 
in  the  humming-bird.  With  a  yellow  pine  at  my  back,  a  moss 
cushion  beneath,  and  a  ledge  of  flat  stone  at  my  elbow,  you  will 
allow  I  had  a  secretary's  outfit.  I  spread  my  paper,  and  mended 
my  pen ;  and  then  (you  will  pardon  me,  dear  Doctor)  I  forgot 
you  altogether!  The  truth  is,  these  fanciful  garnishings  spoil 
work.  Silvio  Pellico  had  a  better  place  to  write  in.  If  it  had 
been  a  room  with  a  Chinese  paper,  (a  bird  standing  forever  on 
one  leg,  and  a  tree  ruffled  by  the  summer  wind,  and  fixed  with 
its  leaves  on  edge,  as  if  petrified  with  the  varlet's  impudence,) 
the  eye  might  get  accustomed  to  it.  But  first  came  a  gold-robin, 
twittering  out  his  surprise  to  find  strange  company  in  his  parlor, 
yet  never  frighted  from  his  twig  by  pen  and  ink.  By  the  time  I 
had  sucked  a  lesson  out  of  that,  a  squirrel  tripped  in  without 
knocking,  and  sat  nibbling  at  a  last-year's  nut,  as  if  nobody  but 
he  took  thought  for  the  morrow.  Then  came  an  enterprising 
ant,  climbing  my  knee  like  a  discoverer ;  and  I  wondered  whether 
Fernando  Cortes  would  have  mounted  so  boldly,  had  the  peak 
of  Darien  been  as  new-dropped  between  the  Americas,  as  my 
leg  by  his  ant-hill.  By  this  time,  a  small  dripping  from  a  moss- 
fringe  at  my  elbow  betrayed  the  lip  of  a  spring ;  and,  dislodging 
a  stone,  I  uncovered  a  brace  of  lizards  lying  snug  in  the  ooze. 
We  flatter  ourselves,  thought  I,  that  we  drink  first  of  the  spring. 
We  do  not  know,  always,  whose  lips  were  before  us. 

Much  as  you  see  of  insect  life,  and  hear  of  bird-music,  as  you 
walk  abroad,  you  should  lie  perdu  in  a  nook,  to  know  how  much 
is  frighted  from  sight,  and  hushed  from  singing,  by  your  approach. 


20  LETTER  I. 


What  worms  creep  out  when  they  think  you  gone,  and  what 
chatterers  go  on  with  their  story  !  So  among  friends,  thought  I, 
as  I  fished  for  the  moral.  We  should  be  wiser,  if  we  knew  what 
our  coming  hides  and  silences,  but  should  we  walk  so  undis- 
turbed on  our  way  ? 

You  will  see  with  half  a  glance,  dear  Doctor,  that  here  was 
too  much  company  for  writing.  I  screwed  up  my  inkstand  once 
more,  and  kept  up  the  bed  of  the  stream  till  it  enters  the  forest, 
remembering  a  still  place  by  a  pool.  The  tall  pines  hold  up  the 
roof  high  as  an  umbrella  of  Brobdignag,  and  neither  water  brawls, 
nor  small  birds  sing,  in  the  gloom  of  it.  Here,  thought  I,  as  far 
as  they  go,  the  circumstances  are  congenial.  But,  as  Jean  Paul 
says,  there  is  a  period  of  life  when  the  real  gains  ground  upon 
the  ideal ;  and  to  be  honest,  dear  Doctor,  I  sat  leaning  on  the 
shingle  across  my  knees,  counting  my  sky-kissing  pines,  and 
reckoning  what  they  would  bring  in  saw-logs — so  much  stand- 
ing— so  much  drawn  to  the  mill.  Then  there  would  be  wear  and 
tear  of  bob-sled,  teamster's  wages,  and  your  dead-pull  springs, 
the  horses'  knees.  I  had  nearly  settled  the  per  and  contra,  when 
my  eye  lit  once  more  on  "  my  dear  Doctor,"  staring  from  the  un- 
filled sheet,  like  the  ghost  of  a  murdered  resolution.  "  Since 
when,"  I  asked,  looking  myself  sternly  in  the  face ;  "  is  it  so  diffi- 
cult to  be  virtuous  ?  Shall  I  not  write  when  I  have  a  mind  ? 
Shall  I  reckon  pelf,  whether  I  will  or  no  ?  Shall  butterfly  ima- 
gination thrust  iron-heart  to  the  wall  ?  No  !" 

I  took  a  straight  cut  through  my  ruta-baga  patch  and  cornfield, 
bent  on  finding  some  locality  (out  of  doors  it  must  be)  with  the 
average  attractions  of  a  sentry-box,  or  a  church-pew.  I  reached 
the  high-road,  making  insensibly  for  a  brush  dam,  where  I  should 


PLACE  TO  WRITE.  21 


sit  upon  a  log,  with  my  face  abutted  upon  a  wall  of  chopped 
saplings.  I  have  not  mentioned  my  dog,  who  had  followed  me 
cheerfully  thus  far,  putting  up  now  and  then  a  partridge,  to  keep 
his  nose  in ;  but,  on  coming  to  the  bridge  over  the  brook,  he 
made  up  his  mind.  "  My  master,"  he  said,  (or  looked,)  "  will 
neither  follow  the  game,  nor  sit  in  the  cool.  Clwcun  a  son  gout. 
I'm  tired  of  this  bobbing  about  for  nothing  in  a  hot  sun."  So, 
dousing  his  tail,  (which,  "  if  you  ever  observed,"  a  dog  hoists,  as 
a  flag-ship  does  her  pennant,  only  when  the  commodore  is  aboard,) 
he  sprung  the  railing,  and  spread  himself  for  a  snooze  under  the 
bridge.  "  Ben  trovato  /"  said  I,  as  I  seated  myself  by  his  side. 
He  wagged  his  tail  half  round  to  acknowledge  the  compliment, 
and  I  took  to  work  like  a  hay-maker. 

I  have  taken  some  pains  to  describe  these  difficulties  to  you, 
dear  Doctor,  partly  because  I  hold  it  to  be  fair,  in  this  give-and- 
take  world,  that  a  man  should  know  what  it  costs  his  fellow  to 
fulfil  obligations,  but  more  especially,  to  apprise  you  of  the 
metempsychose  that  is  taking  place  in  myself.  You  will  have 
divined,  ere  this,  that,  in  my  out-of-doors  life,  I  am  approaching 
a  degree  nearer  to  Arcadian  perfectibility,  and  that  if  I  but 
manage  to  get  a  bark  on  and  live  by  sap,  (spare  your  wit,  sir !)  I 
shall  be  rid  of  much  that  is  troublesome,  not  to  say  expensive,  in 
the  matters  of  drink  and  integument.  What  most  surprises  me  in 
the  past,  is,  that  I  ever  should  have  confined  my  free  soul  and 
body,  in  the  very  many  narrow  places  and  usages  I  have  known 
in  towns.  I  can  only  assimilate  myself  to  a  squirrel,  brought  up 
in  a  school-boy's  pocket,  and  let  out  some  June  morning  on  a 
snake  fence. 

The  spring  has  been  damp  for  corn,  but  I  had  planted  on  a 


22  LETTER  I 

warm  hillside,  and  have  done  better  than  my  neighbors.  The 
Owaga*  creek,  which  makes  a  bend  round  my  meadow  before  it 
drops  into  the  Susquehannah — (a  swift,  bright  river  the  Owagn, 
with  as  much  water  as  the  Arno  at  Florence) — overflowed  my 
cabbages  and  onions,  in  the  May  freshet ;  but  that  touches  neither 
me  nor  my  horse.  The  winter  wheat  looks  like  "  velvet  of  three- 
oile,"  and  everything  is  out  of  the  ground,  including,  in  my  case, 
;he  buckwheat,  which  is  not  yet  put  in.  This  is  to  be  an  old- 
fashioned  hot  summer,  and  I  shall  sow  late.  The  peas  are  pod- 
ded. Did  it  ever  strike  you,  by  the  way,  that  the  pious  ^Eneas, 
famous  through  all  ages  for  carrying  old  Anchises  a  mile,  should, 
after  all,  yield  glory  -  to  a  lean.  Perhaps  you  never  observed, 
that  this  filial  esculent  grows  up  with  his  father  on  his  back. 

In  my  "  new  light,"  a  farmer's  life  seems  to  me  what  a  manu- 
facturer's might  resemble,  if  his  factory  were  an  indigenous  plant 
— machinery,  girls,  and  all.  What  spindles  and  fingers  it  would 
take  to  make  an  orchard,  if  Nature  found  nothing  but  the  raw 
seed,  and  rain-water  and  sunshine  were  brought  as  far  as  a  cotton 
bale  !  Your  despised  cabbage  would  be  a  prime  article — if  you 
had  to  weave  it.  Pumpkins,  if  they  ripened  with  a  hair-spring 
and  patent  lever,  would  be,  "  by'r  lady,"  a  curious  invention. 
Yet  these,  which  Aladdin  nature  produces  if  we  but  "  rub  the 
lamp,"  are  more  necessary  to  life  than  clothes  or  watches.  In 
planting  a  tree,  (I  write  it  reverently,)  it  seems  to  me  working 
immediately  with  the  divine  faculty.  Here  are  two  hundred 
forest  trees  set  out  with  my  own  hand.  Yet  how  little  is  iny 
part  in  the  glorious  creatures  they  become ! 

*  Corrupted  now  to  Owego.    Ochwaga  was  the  Indian  word,  and  means 
sieift  water. 


OXEN  REMEMBERED.  23 


This  reminds  me  of  a  liberty  I  have  lately  taken  with  Nature, 
«/hich  I  ventured  upon  with  proper  diffidence,  though  the  dame, 
as  will  happen  with  dames,  proved  less  coy  than  was  predicted. 
The  brook  at  my  feet,  from  its  birth  in  the  hills  till  it  dropped 
into  the  meadow's  lap,  tripped  down,  like  a  mountain-maid  with 
a  song,  bright  and  unsullied.  So  it  flowed  by  my  door.  At  the 
foot  of  the  bank  its  song  and  sparkle  ceased  suddenly,  and,  turn- 
ing under  the  hill,  its  waters  disappeared  among  sedge  and 
rushes.  It  was  more  a  pity,  because  you  looked  across  the 
meadow  to  the  stately  Owaga,  and  saw  that  its  unfulfilled  destiny 
was  to  have'  poured  its  brightness  into  his.  The  author  of  Ernest 
Maltravers  has  set  the  fashion  of  charity  to  such  fallings  away.  I . 
made  a  new  channel  over  the  meadow,  gravelled  its  bed,  and 
grassed  its  banks,  and  (last  and  best  charity  of  all)  protected  its 
recovered  course  with  overshadowy  trees.  Not  quite  with  so  gay  a 
sparkle,  but  with  a  placid  and  tranquil  beauty,  the  lost  stream 
glides  over  the  meadow,  and,  Maltravers-like,  the  Owaga  takes 
her  lovingly  to  his  bosom.  The  sedge  and  rushes  are  turned  into 
a  garden,  and,  if  you  drop  a  flower  into  the  brook  at  my  door,  it 
scarce  loses  a  breath  of  its  perfume  before  it  is  flung  on  the 
Owaga,  and  the  Susquehannah  robs  him  of  it  but  with  his  life. 

I  have  scribbled  away  the  hours  till  near  noon,  and  it  is  time 
to  see  that  the  oxen  get  their  potatoes.  Faith !  it's  a  cool  place 
under  a  bridge.  Knock  out  the  two  ends  of  the  Astor  House, 
and  turn  the  Hudson  through  the  long  passage,  and  you  will  get 
an  idea  of  it.  The  breeze  draws  through  here  deftly,  the  stone 
wall  is  cool  to  my  back,  and  this  floor  of  running  water,  besides 
what  the  air  steals  from  it,  sounds  and  looks  refreshingly.  My 
letter  has  run,  on,  till  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  industry  of  running 


LETTER  J 


water  "  breeds  i'  the  brain."  Like  the  tin  pot  at  the  cur's  tail, 
it  seems  to  overtake  one  with  an  admonition,  if  he  but  slack  tc 
breathe.  Be  not  alarmed,  dear  Doctor,  for,  sans  potatoes,  my 
oxen  will  loll  in  the  furrow,  and  though  the  brook  run  till  dooms- 
day, I  must  stop  here. 


LETTER  II. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR:  I  have  just  had  a  visit  from  the  assessor. 
As  if  a  man  should  be  taxed  for  a  house,  who  could  be  luxurious 
under  a  bridge  !  I  have  felt  a  decided  "  call"  to  disclaim  roof 
and  threshold,  and  write  myself  down  a  vagabond.  Fancy  the 
variety  of  abodes  open,  rent-free,  to  a  bridge-fancier  !  It  is  said 
among  the  settlers,  that  where  a  stranger  finds  a  tree  blown  over, 
(the  roots  forming,  always,  an  upright  and  well-matted  wall,)  he 
has  only  his  house  to  finish.  Cellar  and  chimney-back  are  ready 
done  to  his  hand.  But,  besides  being  roofed,  walled,  and  water- 
ed, and  better  situated,  and  more  plenty  than  over-blown  trees 
— bridges  are  on  no  man's  land.  You  are  no  "  squatter,"  though 
you  sit  upon  your  hams.  You  may  shut  up  one  end  with  pine 
boughs,  and  you  have  a  room  a-la-mode — one  large  window  open 
to  the  floor.  The  view  is  of  banks  and  running  water — exquisite 
of  necessity.  For  the  summer  months  I  could  imagine  this 
bridge-gipsying  delicious.  What  furniture  might  pack  in  a 
donkey-cart,  would  set  forth  a  better  apartment  than  is  averaged 
in  "houses  of  entertainment,"  (so  yclept,)  and  the  saving  to 
your  soul  (of  sins  committed,  sitting  at  a  bell-rope,  ringing  in 
vain  for  water)  would  be  worthy  a  conscientious  man's  attention. 
VOL.  i.  9, 


20  LETTER  II. 


I  will  not  deny  that  the  bridge  of  Glenmary  is  a  favorable 
specimen.  As  its  abutments  touch  my  cottage-lawn,  I  was  under 
the  necessity  of  presenting  the  public  with  a  new  bridge,  for 
which  act  of  munificence  I  have  not  yet  received  "  the  freedom 
of  the  town."  Perhaps  I  am  expected  to  walk  through  it  when 
I  please,  without  asking.  The  hitherward  railing  coming  into  the 
line  of  my  fence,  I  have,  in  a  measure,  a  private  entrance  ;  and 
the  whole  structure  is  overshadowed  by  a  luxuriant  tree.  To  be 
sure,  the  beggar  may  go  down  the  bank  in  the  road,  and,  enter- 
ing by  the  other  side,  sit  under  it  as  well  as  I — but  he  is  welcome. 
I  like  society  sans- gene — where  you  may  come  in  or  go  out  with- 
out apology,  or  whistle,  or  take  off  your  shoes.  And  I  would 
give  notice  here  to  the  beggary  of  Tioga,  that,  in  building  a  stone 
seat  under  the  bridge,  and  laying  the  banks  with  green-sward,  I 
intend  no  sequestration  of  their  privileges.  I  was  pleased  that  a 
swallo\v,  who  had  laid  her  mud-nest  against  a  sleeper  overhead, 
took  no  offence  at  my  improvements.  Her  three  nestlings  made 
large  eyes  when  I  read  out  what  I  have  scribbled,  but  she  drowses 
on  without  astonishment.  She  is  a  swallow  of  last  summer,  and 
has  seen  authors. 

A  foot-passenger  has  just  gone  over  the  bridge,  and,  little 
dreaming  there  were  four  of  us  listening,  (the  swallows  and  I,) 
he  leaned  over  the  railing,  and  ventured  upon  a  soliloquy.  "  Why 
don't  he  cut  down  the  trees  so's  he  can  see  out  ?"  said  my  uncon- 
scious adviser.  I  caught  the  eye  of  the  mother-swallow*  and 
fancied  she  was  amused.  Her  swallowlings  looked  petrified  at 
the  sacrilegious  suggestion.  By  the  way,  it  is  worthy  of  remark, 
that  though  her  little  ones  have  been  hatched  a  week,  this 
estimable  parent  still  nts  upon  their  heads.  Might  not  this  con- 


WHERE  ARE  WE  ALONE.  27 


turned  incubation  be  tried  with  success  upon  backward  children  ? 
We  are  so  apt  to  think  babies  are  finished  Avhen  their  bodies  are 
brought  into  the  world  ! 

For  some  minutes,  now,  I  have  observed  an  occasional  cloud 
rising  from  the  bottom  of  the  brook,  and,  peering  among  the 
stones,  I  discovered  one  of  the  small  lobsters  with  which  the 
streams  abound.  (The  naturalists  may  class  them  differently, 
but  as  there  is  but  one,  and  he  has  all  the  armament  of  a  lobster, 
though  on  the  scale  of  a  shrimp,  the  swallows  agree  with  me  in 
opinion  that  he  should  rank  as  a  lobster.)  So  we  are  five. 
"  Cocksnouns !"  to  borrow  Scott's  ejaculation,  people  should 
never  be  too  sure  that  they  are  unobserved.  When  I  first  came 
under  the  bridge,  I  thought  myself  alone. 

This  lobster  puts  me  in  mind  of  Talleyrand.  You  would  say 
he  is  going  backward,  yet  he  gets  on  faster  that  way  than  the 
other.  After  all,  he  is  a  great  man  who  can  turn  his  reverses  to 
account,  and  that  I  take  to  be,  oftentimes,  one  of  the  chief  secrets 
of  greatness.  If  I  were  in  politics,  I  would  take  the  lobster  for 
my  crest.  It  would  be  ominous,  I  fear,  in  poetry. 

You  should  come  to  the  country  now,  if  you  would  see  the 
glory  of  the  world.  The  trees  have  been  coquetting  at  their 
toilet,  waiting  for  warmer  weather ;  but  now  I  think  they  have 
put  on  their  last  flounce  and  furbelow,  spread  their  "  bustle"  and 
stand  to  be  admired.  They  say  "  leafy  June."  To-day  is  the 
first  of  July,  and  though  1  give  the  trees  my  first  morning  regard 
(out  of  doors%  when  my  eyes  are  clearest,  I  have  not  fairly 
thought,  till  to-day,  that  the  foliage  was  full.  If  it  were  not  for 
lovers  and  authors,  who  keep  vigil  and  count  the  hours,  I  should 
suspect  there  was  foul  play  between  sun  and  moon — a  legitimate 


LETTER  II. 


day  made  away  with  now  and  then.     (The  crime  is  not  unknown 
in  the  upper  circles.     Saturn  devoured  his  children.) 

There  is  a  glory  in  potatoes — well  hoed.  Corn — the  swaying 
and  stately  maize — has  a  visible  glory.  To  see  the  glory  of 
turnips,  you  must  own  the  crop,  and  have  cattle  to  fat — but  they 
have  a  glory.  Pease  need  no  paean — they  are  appreciated.  So 
are  not  cabbages,  which,  though  beautiful  as  a  Pompeian  wine- 
cup,  and  honored  above  roses  by  the  lingering  of  the  dew,  are 
yet  despised  of  all  handicrafts — save  one.  Apt  emblem  of  ancient 
maidenhood,  which  is  despised,  like  cabbages,  yet  cherishes 
unsunned  in  its  bosom  the  very  dew  we  mourn  so  inconsistently 
when  rifled  from  the  rose. 

Apropos — the  delicate  tribute  in  the  last  sentence  shall  serve 
for  an  expiation.  In  a  journey  I  made  through  Switzerland,  I 
had,  for  chance-travelling  companions,  three  Scotch  ladies,  of  the 
class  emulated  by  this  chaste  vegetable.  They  were  intelligent, 
refined,  and  lady-like ;  yet,  in  some  Pencillings  by  the  Way, 
(sketched,  perhaps,  upon  an  indigestion  of  mountain  cheese,  or 
an  acidity  of  bad  wine — such  things  affect  us,)  I  was  perverse 
enough  to  jot  down  a  remark,  more  invidious  than  just.  We  are 
reached  with  a  long  whip  for  our  transgressions,  and,  but  yester- 
day, I  received  a  letter  from  the  Isle  of  Man,  of  which  thus 
runs  an  extract :  "In  your  description  of  a  dangerous  pass  in 
Switzerland,  you  mention  travelling  in  the  same  public  convey- 
ance with  three  Scotch  spinsters,  and  declare  you  would  have 
been  alarmed,  had  there  been  any  neck  in  the  carriage  you  cared 
for,  and  assert,  that  neither  of  your  companions  would  have 
hesitated  to  leap  from  a  precipice,  had  there  been  a  lover  at  the 
bottom.  Did  either  of  us  tell  you  so,  sir  ?  Or  what  ground 


THE  ORIOLE.  29 


have  you  for  this  assertion  ?  You  could  not  have  judged  of  us 
by  your  own  beautiful  countrywomen,  for  they  are  proverbial 
for  delicacy  of  feeling.  You  had  not  yet  made  the  acquaintance 
of  mine.  We,  therefore,  must  appropriate  entirely  to  ourselves 
the  very  nattering  idea  of  having  inspired  such  an  opinion.  Yet 
allow  me  to  assure  you,  sir,  that  lovers  are  by  no  means  so  scarce 
in  my  native  country,  as  you  seem  to  imagine.  No  Scotchwoman 
need  go  either  to  Switzerland,  or  Yankee-land,  in  search  of  them. 
Permit  me  to  say  then,  sir,  that  as  the  attack  was  so  public,  an 
equally  public  amende  honorable  is  due  to  us." 

I  make  it  here.  I  retract  the  opinion  altogether.  I  do  not 
think  you  "  would  have  leaped  from  the  precipice,  had  there 

been  a  lover  at  the  bottom."  On  the  contrary,  dear  Miss , 

I  think  you  would  have  waited  till  he  climbed  up.  The  amende, 
I  flatter  myself,  could  scarce  be  more  complete.  Yet  I  will  make 
it  stronger  if  you  wish. 

As  I  look  out  from  under  the  bridge,  I  see  an  oriole  sit- 
ting upon  a  dog-wood  tree  of  my  planting.  His  song  drew  my 
eye  from  the  paper.  I  find  it  difficult,  now,  not  to  take  to  my- 
self the  whole  glory  of  tree,  song,  and  plumage.  By  an  easy  de- 
lusion, I  fancy  he  would  not  have  come  but  for  the  beauty  of  the 
tree,  and  that  his  song  says  as  much  in  bird-recitative.  I  go 
back  to  one  rainy  day  of  April,  when,  hunting  for  maple  saplings, 
I  stopped  under  that  graceful  tree,  in  a  sort  of  island  jungle,  and 
wondered  what  grew  so  fair  that  was  so  unfamiliar,  yet  with  a 
bark  like  the  plumage  of  the  pencilled  pheasant.  The  limbs 
grew  curiously.  A  lance-like  stem,  and,  at  regular  distances,  a 
cluster  of  radiating  branches,  like  a  long  cane  thrust  through  in- 
verted parasols.  I  set  to  work  with  spade  and  picK,  took  it 


30  LETTER  II. 


home  on  my  sboulder,  and  set  it  out  by  Glenmary  brook ;  and 
there  it  stands  to-day,  in  the  full  glory  of  its  leaves,  having  just 
shed  the  white  blossoms  with  which  it  kept  holyday  in  June. 
Now  the  tree  would  have  leafed  and  flowered,  and  the  bird,  in 
black  and  gold,  might  perchance  have  swung  and  sung  on  the 
slender  branch,  which  is  still  tilting  with  his  effort  in  the  last  ca- 
denza. But  the  fair  picture  it  makes  to  my  eye,  and  the  delicious 
music  in  my  ear,  seem  to  me  no  less  of  my  own  making  and 
awaking.  Is  it  the  same  tree,  flowering  unseen  in  the  woods,  or 
transplanted  into  a  circle  of  human  love  and  care,  making  a  part 
of  woman's  home,  and  thought  of  and  admired  whenever  she 
comes  out  from  her  cottage,  with  a  blessing  on  the  perfume  and 
verdure  ?  Is  it  the  same  bird,  wasting  his  song  in  the  thicket,  or 
singing  to  me,  with  my  whole  mind  afloat  on  his  music,  and  my 
eyes  fastened  to  his  glittering  breast  ?  So  it  is  the  same  block 
of  marble,  unmoved  in  the  caves  of  Pentelicus,  or  brought  forth 
and  wrought  under  the  sculptor's  chisel.  Yet  the  sculptor  is 
allowed  to  create.  Sing  on,  my  bright  oriole !  Spread  to  the 
light  and  breeze  your  desiring  finger,  my  flowering  tree !  Like 
the  player  upon  the  organ,  I  take  your  glory  to  myself ;  though, 
like  the  hallelujah  that  burns  under  his  fingers,  your  beauty  and 
music  worship  God. 

There  are  men  in  the  world  whose  misfortune  it  is  to  think  too 
little  of  themselves — rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vasto.  I  would  recom- 
mend to  such  to  plant  trees,  and  live  among  them.  This  suggest- 
ing to  nature — working,  as  a  master-mind,  with  all  the  fine 
mysteries  of  root  and  sap  obedient  to  the  call — is  very  king-like. 
Then  how  elevating  is  the  society  of  trees !  The  objection  I  have 
to  a  city,  is  the  necessity,  at  every  other  step,  of  passing  some 


DRAWBACK  OF  CITY  LIFE.  31 


acquaintance  or  other,  with  all  his  merits  or  demerits  entirely 
through  my  mind — some  man,  perhaps,  whose  existence  and  vo- 
cation I  have  not  suggested — (as  I  might  have  done  were  he  a 
tree) — whom  I  neither  love,  nor  care  to  meet ;  and  yet  he  is 
thrust  upon  my  eye,  and  must  be  noticed.  But  to  notice  him 
with  propriety,  I  must  remember  what  he  is — what  claims  he  has 
to  my  respect,  my  civility.  I  must,  in  a  minute,  balance  the  ac- 
count between  my  character  and  his,  and,  if  he  speak  tc  me, 
remember  his  wife  and  children,  his  last  illness,  his  mishap  or 
fortune  in  trade,  or  whatever  else  it  is  necessary  to  mention  in 
condolence  or  felicitation.  A  man  with  but  a  moderate  acquaint- 
ance, living  in  a  city,  will  pass  through  his  mind  each  day,  at  a 
fair  calculation,  say  two  hundred  men  and  women,  with  their  be- 
longings. What  tax  on  the  memory!  What  fatigue  (and  all 
profitless)  to  them  and  him !  "  Sweep  me  out  like  a  foul  thor- 
oughfare !"  say  I.  "The  town  has  trudged  through  me !" 

I  like  my  mind  to  be  a  green  lane,  private  to  the  dwellers  in 
my  own  demesne.  I  like  to  be  bowed  to  as  the  trees  bow,  and 
have  no  need  to  bow  back  or  smile.  If  I  am  sad,  my  trees  fore- 
go my  notice  without  offence.  If  I  am  merry,  or  whimsical,  they 
do  not  suspect  my  good  sense,  or  my  sanity.  We  have  a  con- 
stant itching  (all  men  have,  I  think)  to  measure  ourselves  by 
those  about  us.  I  would  rather  it  should  be  a  tree  than  a  fop,  or 
a  politician,  or  a  'prentice.  We  grow  to  the  nearest  standard. 
We  become  Lilliputians  in  Lilliput.  Let  me  grow  up  like  a  tree. 

But  here  comes  Tom  Groom  with  an  axe,  as  if  he  had  looked 
over  my  shoulder,  and  started,  apropos  of  trees. 

"  Is  it  that  big  button-ball  you'll  have  cut  down,  sir?" 

"  Call  it  a  sycamore,  Tom,  and  I'll  come  and  see."     Itis  a  fine 


32  LETTER  II. 


old  trunk,  but  it  shuts  out  the  village  spire  and  must  come 
down. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor  ;  you  may  call  this  a  letter  if  you  will,  but 
it  is  more  like  an  essay. 


LETTER    III. 

DEAR  DOCTOU  :  There  are  some  things  that  grow  more  certain 
•with  time  and  experience.  Among  them,  I  am  happier  for  find- 
ing out,  is  the  affinity  which  makes  us  friends.  But  there  are 
other  matters  which,  for  me,  observation  and  knowledge  only 
serve  to  perplex,  and  among  these  is  to  know  whose  "  education 
has  been  neglected."  One  of  the  first  new  lights  which  brojte  on 
me,  was  after  my  first  day  in  France.  I  went  to  bed  with  a  new- 
born contempt,  mingled  with  resentment,  in  my  mind,  toward  my 
venerable  alma  mater.  The  three  most  important  branches  of 
earthly  knowledge,  I  said  to  myself,  are  to  understand  French 
when  it  is  spoken,  to  speak  it  so  as  to  be  understood,  and  to  read 
and  write  it  with  propriety  and  ease.  For  accomplishment  in  the 
last,  I  could  refer  to  my  diploma,  where  the  fact  was  stated  on 
indestructible  parchment.  But  allowing  it  to  speak  the  truth, 
(which  was  allowing  a  great  deal,)  there  were  the  two  preceding 
branches,  in  which  (most  culpably  to  my  thinking)  "  my  educa- 
tion had  been  neglected."  Could  I  have  taken  out  my  brains, 
and,  by  simmering  in  a  pot,  have  decocted  Virgil,  Homer,  Play- 
fair,  Dugald  Stewart,  and  Copernicus,  all  five,  into  one  very  small 
Frenchman — (what  they  had  taught  me  to  what  he  could  teach)— 
I  should  have  been  content,  though  the  fiend  blew  the  fire. 


84  LETTER  III. 


I  remember  a  beggarly  Greek,  who  acquired  an  ascendency 
over  eigbt  or  ten  of  us,  gentlemen  and  scholars,  travelling  in  the 
east,  by  a  knowledge  of  what  esculents,  growing  wild  above  the 
bones  of  Miltiades,  were  "good  for  greens."  We  were  out  of 
provisions,  and  fain  to  eat  with  Nebuchadnezzar.  "  Hang  gram- 
mar !"  thought  I,  "here's  a  branch  in  which  my  education  has 
been  neglected."  Who  was  ever  called  upon  in  his  travels  to 
conjugate  a  verb  ?  Yet  here,  but  for  this  degenerate  Athenian, 
we  had  starved  for  our  ignorance  of  what  is  edible  in  plants. 

I  had  occasion,  only  yesterday,  to  make  a  similar  remark.  I 
was  in  a  crowded  church,  listening  to  a  Fourth  of  July  oration. 
What  with  one  sort  of  caloric  and  what  with  another,  it  was  very 
uncomfortable,  and  a  lady  near  me  became  faint.  To  get  her  out, 
was  impossible,  and  there  was  neither  fan,  nor  sal  volatile,  within 
twenty  pews.  The  bustle,  after  a  while,  drew  the  attention  of 
an  uncombed  Yankee  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  who  had  stood  in  the 
aisle  with  his  mouth  open,  gazing  at  the  stage  in  front  of  the  pul- 
pit, and  wandering,  perhaps,  what  particular  difference  between 
sacred  and  profane  oratory  required  this  painstaking  exhibition 
of  the  speaker's  legs.  Comprehending  the  state  of  the  case  at  a 
single  glance,  the  backwoodsman  whipped  together  the  two  ends 
of  his  riding-switch,  pulled  his  cotton  handkerchief  tightly  over  it, 
and,  with  this  effective  fan,  soon  raised  a  breeze  that  restored 
consciousness  to  the  lady,  besides  cooling  everybody  in  the  vicin- 
ity. Here  is  a  man,  thought  I,  brought  up  to  have  his  wits 
ready  for  an  emergency.  His  "education  has  not  been  neg- 
lected." 

To  know  nothing  of  sailing  a  ship,  of  farming,  of  carpentering, 
in  short,  of  any  trade  or  profession,  may  be  a  proper,  though 


AVAILABLE  KNOWLEDGE  35 


sometimes  inconvenient  ignorance.  I  only  speak  of  such  defi- 
ciencies, as  a  modest  person  will  not  confess  without  giving  a 
reason — as  a  man  who  can  not  swim  will  say  he  is  liable  to  the 
cramp  in  deep  water.  With  some  reluctance,  lately,  I  have 
brought  myself  to  look  after  such  dropped  threads  in  my  own 
woof  of  acquisitions,  in  the  hope  of  mending  them  before  they 
were  betrayed  by  an  exigency.  Trout-fishing  is  one  of  these.  I 
plucked  up  heart  a  day  or  two  since,  and  drove  to  call  upon  a 
young  sporting  friend  of  mine,  to  whom  I  confessed,  plump,  I 
never  had  caught  a  trout.  I  knew  nothing  of  flies,  worms,  rods, 
or  hooks.  Though  I  had  seen  in  a  book  that  "  hog's  down"  was 
the  material  for  the  May-fly,  I  positively  did  not  know  on  what 
part  of  that  succulent  quadruped  the  down  was  found. 
/'Positively?" 
"  Positively  !" 

My  friend  F.  gravely  shut  the  door  to  secure  privacy  to  my 
ignorance,  and  took  from  his  desk  a  volume — of  flies  !  Here  was 
new  matter !  Why,  sir !  your  trout-fishing  is  a  politician  of  the 
first  water !  Here  were  baits  adapted  to  all  the  whims,  weak- 
nesses, states  of  appetite,  even  counter- baits  to  the  very  cunning, 
of  the  fish.  Taking  up  the  "  Spirit  of  the  Times  "  newspaper, 
his  authority  in  all  sporting  matters,  which  he  had  laid  down  as 
I  came  in,  he  read  a  recipe  for  the  construction  of  one  out  of  these 
many  seductive  imitations,  as  a  specimen  of  the  labor  bestowed 
on  them.  "  The  body  is  dubbed  with  hog's  down,  or  light  bear's 
hair  mixed  with  yellow  mohair,  whipped  with  pale  floss  silk,  and 
a  small  strip  of  peacock's  her!  for  the  head.  The  wings  from  the 
rayed  feathers  of  the  mallard,  dyed  yellow  ;  the  hackle  from  the 


36  LETTER  III. 


bittern's  neck,  and  the  tail  from  the  long  hairs. of  the  sable  or 
ferret." 

I  cut  my  friend  short,  midway  in  his  volume,  for,  ever  since 
my  disgust  at  discovering  that  the  perplexed  grammar  I  had 
been  whipped  through  was  nothing  but  the  art  of  talking  cor- 
rectly, which  I  could  do  before  I  began,  I  have  had  an  aversion 
to  rudiments.  "  Frankly,"  said  I,  "  dear  F.  my  education  has 
been  neglected.  Will  you  take  me  with  you,  trout-fishing,  fish 
yourself,  answer  my  questions,  and  assist  me  to  pick  up  the  sci- 
ence in  my  own  scrambling  fashion  ?" 

He  was  good-natured  enough  to  consent,  and  now,  dear  Doc- 
tor, you  see  to  what  all  this  prologue  was  tending.  A  day's 
trout-fishing  may  be  a  very  common  matter  to  you,  but  the  sport 
was  as  new  to  me  as  to  the  trout.  I  may  say,  however,  that  of 
the  two,  I  took  to  the  novelty  of  the  thing  more  kindly. 

The  morning  after  was  breezy,  and  the  air,  without  a  shower, 
had  become  cool.  I  was  sitting  under  the  bridge,  with  my  heels 
at  the  water's  edge,  reading  a  newspaper,  while  waiting  for  my 
breakfast,  when  a  slight  motion  apprised  me  that  the  water  had 
invaded  my  instep.  I  had  been  wishing  the  sun  had  drank  less 
freely  of  my  brook,  and,  within  a  few  minutes  of  the  wish,  it  had 
risen,  doubtless,  from  the  skirt  of  a  shower  in  the  hills  beyond 
us.  *'  Come !"  thought  I,  pulling  my  boots  out  of  the  ripple, 
"  so  should  arrive  favors  that  would  be  welcome — no  herald,  and 
no  weary  expectation.  A  human  gift  so  uses  up  gratitude  with 
the  asking  and  delaying."  The  swallow  heard  the  increased 
babble  of  the  stream,  and  came  cut  of  the  air  like  a  scimetar  to 
see  if  her  little  ones  were  afraid,  and  the  fussy  lobster  bustled 


START  FOR  FISHING.  3<T 


about  m  his  pool,  as  if  there  were  more  company  than  he  expect- 
ed. "  Semper  paratus  is  a  good  motto,  Mr.  Lobster!"  "  I  will 
look  after  your  little  ones,  Dame  Swallow !"  I  had  scarce  dis- 
tributed these  consolations  among  my  family,  when  a  horse  crossed 
the  bridge  at  a  gallop,  and  the  head  of  my  friend  F.  peered  pres- 
ently over  the  railing. 

"  How  is  your  brook  ?" 

"  Rising,  as  you  see !" 

It  was  evident  there  had  been  rain  west  of  us,  and  the  sky  was 
still  gray — good  auspices  for  the  fisher.  In  half  an  hour  we  were 
climbing  the  hill,  with  such  contents  in  the  wagon-box  as  my 
friend  advised — the  debris  of  a  roast  pig  and  a  bottle  of  hock, 
supposed  to  be  included  in  the  bait.  As  we  got  into  the  woods 
above,  (part  of  my  own  small  domain,)  I  could  scarce  help  ad- 
dressing my  tall  tenantry  of  trees.  "  Grow  away,  gentlemen,"  I 
would  have  said,  had  I  been  alone;  "I  rejoice  in  your  prosper- 
ity. Help  yourselves  to  the  dew  and  the  sunshine!  If  the 
showers  are  not  sent  to  your  liking,  thrust  your  roots  into  my 
cellar,  lying  just  under  you,  and  moisten  your  clay  without  cere- 
mony— the  more  the  better."  After  all,  trees  have  pleasant 
ways  with  them.  It  is  something  that  they  find  their  own  food 
and  raiment — something  that  they  require  neither  watching  nor 
care — something  that  they  know,  without  almanac,  the  preces- 
sion of  the  seasons,  and  supply,  unprompted  and  unaided,  the 
covering  for  their  tender  family  of  germs.  So  do  not  other  and 
less  profitable  tenants.  But  it  is  more  to  me  that  they  have  no 
whims  to  be  reasoned  with,  no  prejudices  to  be  soothed,  no  gar- 
rulity to  reply  or  listen  to.  I  have  a  peculiarity  which  this 
touches  nearly.  Some  men  "  make  a  god  of  their  belly ;"  some 


38  LETTER  III. 


spend  thought  and  cherishing  on  their  feet,  faces,  hair;  some 
few  on  their  fancy  or  their  reason.  /  am  chary  of  my  gift  of 
speech.  I  hate  to  talk  but  for  my  pleasure.  In  ccmmon  with  my 
fellow-men,  I  have  one  faculty  which  distinguishes  me  from  the 
brute — an  articulate  voice.  I  speak  (I  am  warranted  to  believe) 
like  my  Maker  and  his  angels.  I  have,  committed  to  me,  an  in- 
strument no  human  art  has  ever  imitated,  as  incomprehensible  in 
its  fine  and  celestial  mechanism  as  the  reason  which  controls  it. 
Shall  I  breathe  on  this  articulate  wonder  at  every  fool's  bidding  ? 
Without  reasoning  upon  the  matter  as  I  do  now,  I  have  felt  in- 
dignant at  the  common  adage,  "  words  cost  nothing !"  It  is  a 
common  saying  in  this  part  of  the  country,  that  "  you  may  talk 
off  ten  dollars  in  the  price  of  a  horse."  Those  who  have  trav- 
elled in  Italy,  know  well,  that,  in  procuring  anything  in  that 
country,  from  a  post-carriage  to  a  paper  of  pins,  you  pay  so 
much  money,  so  much  talk — the  less  talk  the  more  money.  I 
commenced  all  my  bargains  with  a  compromise — "  You  charge 
me  ten  scudi,  and  you  expert  me  to  talk  you  down  to  five.  I 
know  the  price  and  the  custom.  Now,  I  will  give  you  seven  and 
a  half  if  you  will  let  me  off  the  talk."  I  should.be  glad  if  all 
buying  and  selling  were  done  by  signs.  It  seems  to  me  that 
talking  on  a  sordid  theme  invades  and  desecrates  the  personal 
dignity.  The  "  scripta  verba  mancnt"  has  no  terrors  for  me.  I 
could  write  that  without  a  thought,  which  I  would  put  myself  to 
great  inconveniences  to  avoid  saying. 

You,  dear  Doctor,  among  others,  have  often  asked  me  how 
long  I  should  be  contented  in, the  country.  Comment,  diable! 
ask,  rather,  how  you  are  contented  in  a  town  !  Does  not  every 
crenture,  whose  name  may  have  been  mentioned  to  you — a  vast 


COMPULSION   OF  TALK.  39 


congregation  of  nothinglings — stop  you  in  the  street,  and,  will 
you,  nill  you,  make  you  perform  on  your  celestial  organ  of 
speech — nay,  even  choose  the  theme  out  of  his  own  littlenesses  ? 
When  and  how  do  you  possess  your  thoughts,  and  their  godlike 
interpreter,  in  dignity  and  peace  ?  You  are  a  man,  of  all  others, 
worthy  of  the  unsuggestive  listening  of  trees.  Your  coinage  of 
thought,  profuse  and  worthy  of  a  gift  of  utterance,  is  alloyed  and 
depreciated  by  the  promiscous  admixtures  of  a  town.  Who  ever 
was  struck  with  the  majesty  of  the  human  voice  in  the  street?  Yet, 
who  ever  spoke,  the  meanest,  in  the  solitude  of  a  temple,  or  a 
wilderness,  or  in  the  stillness  of  night — wherever  the  voice  is 
alone  heard — without  an  awe  of  his  own  utterance — a  feeling  as 
if  he  had  exercised  n.  gift,  which  had  in  it  something  of  the 
supernatural  ? 

The  Indian  talks  to  himself,  or  to  the  Great  Spirit  in  the  woods, 
but  is  silent  among  men.  We  take  many  steps  toward  civiliza- 
tion as  we  get  on  in  life,  but  it  is  an  error  to  think  that  the  heart 
keeps  up  with  the  manners.  At  least,  with  me,  the  perfection  of 
existence  seems  to  be,  to  possess  the  arts  of  social  life,  with  the 
simplicity  and  freedom  of  the  savage.  They  talk  of  "  unbridled 
youth  !"  Who  would  not  have  borne  a  rein  at  twenty,  he  scorns 
at  thirty  ?.  Who  does  not,  as  his  manhood  matures,  grow  more 
impatient  of  restraint — more  unwilling  to  submit  to  the  conven- 
tional tyrannies  of  society — more  ready,  if  there  were  half  a 
reason  for  it,  to  break  through  the  whole  golden  but  enslaving 
mesh  of  society,  and  start  fresh,  with  Nature  and  the  instincts  of 
life,  in  the  wilderness.  The  imprisonment,  to  a  human  eye,  may 
be  as  irksome  as  a  fetter — yet  they  who  live  in  cities  are  never 


40  LETTER  III. 


loosed.     Did  you  ever  stir  out  of  doors  without  remembering  that 
you  were  seer,  ? 

I  have  given  you  my  thoughts  as  I  went  by  my  tall  foresters, 
dear  Doctor,  for  it  is  a  part  of  trout-fishing,  as  quaint  Izaak  held 
it,  to  be  stirred  to  musing  and  revery  by  the  influences  of  nature. 
In  this  ftt«  air,  too,  I  scorn  to  be  tied  down  to  "  the  proprieties." 
Nay,  if  it  come  to  that,  why  should  I  finish  what  I  begin  ?  Dame 
Swallow,  to  be  sure,  looks  curious  to  hear  the  end  of  my  first  les- 
son with  the  angle.  But  no  !  rules  be  hanged !  I  do  not  live  on 
a  wild  brook  to  be  plagued  with  rhetoric.  I  will  seal  up  my  let- 
ter where  I  am,  and  go  a-field.  You  shall  know  what  we  brought 
home  in  the  basket  when  I  write  again. 


LETTER  IV. 

Mv  DEAR  DOCTOR:  Your  letters,  like  yourself,  travel  in  the  best 
ot  company.  What  should  come  with  your  last,  but  a  note  from 
our  friend  Stetson  of  the  Astor,  forwarding  a  letter  which  a  trav- 
eller had  left  in  the  bronze  vase,  with  "  something  enclosed  which 
feels  like  a  key."  "A  key"  quotha!  Attar  of  jasmine,  subtle 
as  the  breath  of  the  prophet  from  Constantinople  by  private 
hand  !  No  less !  The  small  gilt  bottle,  with  its  cubical  edge  and 
cap  of  parchment,  lies  breathing  before  me.  I  think  you  were 
not  so  fortunate  as  to  meet  Bartlett,  the  draughtsman  of  the 
American  Scenery — the  best  of  artists  in  his  way,  and  the  pleas- 
antest  of  John  Bulls,  any  way.  He  travelled  with  me  a  summer 
here,  making  his  sketches,  and  has  since  been  sent  by  the  same 
enterprising  publisher,  (Virtue,  of  Ivy  Lane,)  to  sketch  in  the 
Orient.  ("  Stand  by,"  as  Jack  says,  for  something  glorious  from 
that  quarter.)  Well — pottering  about  the  Bezestein,  he  fell  in 
with  my  old  friend  Mustapha,  the  attar-merchant,  who  lifted  the 
silk  curtains  for  him,  and,  over  sherbet  and  spiced  coffee  in  the 
inner  divan,  questioned  him  of  America — a  country  which,  to 
Mustapha's  fancy,  is  as  far  beyond  the  moon  as  the  moon  is  be- 
yond the  gilt  tip  of  the  seraglio.  Bartlett  told  him  the  sky  was 


42  LETTER  IV. 


round  in  that  country,  and  the  women  faint  and  exquisite  as  his 
own  attar.  Upon  which  Mustapha  took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth, 
and  praised  Allah.  After  stroking  the  smoke  out  of  his  beard, 
and  rolling  his  idea  over  the  whites  of  his  eyes  for  a  few  minutes, 
the  old  merchant  pulled,  from  under  the  silk  cushion,  a  visiting 
card,  once  white,  but  stained  to  a  deep  orange  with  the  fingering 
of  his  fat  hand,  unctuous  from  bath-hour  to  bath-hour  with  the 
precious  oils  he  trafficks  in.  When  Bartlett  assured  him  he  had 
seen  me  in  America,  (it  was  the  card  I  had  given  the  old  Turk  at 
parting,  that  he  might  remember  my  name,)  he  settled  the  cur- 
tains which  divide  the  small  apartment  from  the  shop,  and,  com- 
manding his  huge  Ethiopian  to  watch  the  door,  entered  into  a 
description  of  our  visit  to  the  forbidden  recesses  of  the  slave  - 
market;  of  his  purchase,  (forme,)  of  the  gipsy  Maimuna ;  and 
some  other  of  my  six  weeks'  adventures  in  his  company — for 
Mustapha  and  I,  wherever  it  might  lie  in  his  fat  body,  had  a 
nerve  in  unison.  We  mingled  like  two  drops  of  the  oil  of  roses. 
At  Darting,  he  gave  Bartlett  this  small  bottle  of  jasmine,  to  be 
forwarded  to  me,  with  much  love,  at  his  convenience  ;  arid  with 
the  perfume  of  it  in  my  nostrils,  and  the  corpulent  laugh  of  old 
Mustapha  ringing  in  my  ear,  I  should  find  it  difficult,  at  this  mo- 
ment, to  say  how  much  of  me  is  under  this  bridge  in  Tioga, 
North  America.  I  am  not  sure  that  my  letter  should  not  be 
dated  "  attar  shop,  near  the  seraglio,"  for  there,  it  seems  to  me,  I 
am  writing. 

"  Tor-mentingest  growin'  time,  aint  it !"  says  a  neighbor,  lean- 
ing over  the  bridge  at  this  instant,  and  little  thinking  that,  on  that 
breath  of  his,  I  travelled  from  the  Bosphorus  to  the  Susquehan- 
nah.  Really,  they  talk  of  steamers,  but  there  is  no  travelling 


MENTAL    TRAVEL.  43 


conveyance  like  an  interruption.  A  minute  since,  I  was  in  the 
capital  of  the  Palaeologi,  smoking  a  narghile  in  the  Turk's  shop. 
Presto  !  here  I  am  in  the  county  of  Tiog',  sitting  under  a  bridge, 
with  three  swallows  and  a  lobster,  (not  three  lobsters  at  a  swal- 
low— as  you  are  very  likely  to  read,  in  your  own  careless  way,) 
and  no  outlay  for  coals  or  canvass.  Now,  why  should  not  this 
be  reduced  to  a  science — like  steam  ?  I'll  lend  the  idea  to  the 
cause  of  knowledge.  If  a  man  may  travel  from  Turkey  to  New 
York  on  a  passing  remark,  what  might  be  done  on  a  long  ser- 
mon ?  At  present  the  agent  is  irregular — so  was  steam.  The 
performance  of  the  journey,  at  present,  is  compulsory — so  was 
travelling  by  steam  before  Fulton.  The  discoveries  in  animal 
magnetism  justify  the  most  sanguine  hopes  on  the  subject,  and 
"  open  up,"  as  Mr.  Bulwer  would  express  it,  a  vast  field  of  novel 
discovery. 

The  truth  is,  (I  have  been  sitting  a  minute,  thinking  it  over,) 
the  chief  obstacle  and  inconvenience  in  travelling  is  the  prejudice 
in  favor  of  taking  the  body  with  us.  It  is  really  a  preposterous 
expense.  Going  abroad  exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  the  mind, 
we  are  at  no  little  trouble,  in  the  first  place,  to  provide  the  means 
for  the  body's  subsistence  on  the  journey,  (the  mind  not  being 
subject  to  "  charges;")  and  then,  besides  trailing  after  us,  through 
ruins  and  galleries,  a  companion  who  takes  no  enjoyment  in  pic- 
tures or  temples,  and  is  perpetually  incommoded  by  our  enthusi- 
asm, we  undergo  endless  vexation  and  annoyance  with  the  care 
of  his  baggage.  Blessed  be  Providence,  the  mind  is  independent 
of  boots  and  linen.  When  the  system,  above  hinted  at,  is  perfect- 
ed, we  can  leave  our  box-coats  at  home,  item  pantaloons  for  all 
weathers,  item  cravats,  flannels,  and  innumerable  hose.  I  shall 


44  LETTER  IV. 


use  my  portmanteau  to  send  eggs  to  market,  with  chickens  in  the 
two  carpet-bags.  My  body  I  shall  leave  with  the  dairy-woman, 
to  be  fed  at  milking-time.  Probably,  however,  in  the  progress 
of  knowledge,  there  will  be  some  discovery  by  which  it  can  be 
closed  in  the  absence  of  the  mind,  like  a  town-house  when  the 
occupant  is  in  the  country — blinds  down,  and  a  cobweb  over  the 
keyhole. 

In  all  the  prophetic  visions  of  a  millennium,  the  chief  obstacle  to 
its  progress  is  the  apparently  undiminishing  necessity  for  the  root 
of  all  evil.  Intelligence  is  diffusing,  law  becoming  less  merciless, 
ladies  driving  hoops,  and  (I  have  observed)  a  visible  increase  of 
marriages  between  elderly  ladies  and  very  young  gentlemen — the 
last  a  proof  that  the  affections  (as  will  be  universally  true  in  the 
millennium)  may  retain  their  freshness  in  age.  But,  among  all 
these  lesser  beginnings,  the  philanthropist  has  hitherto  despaired, 
for,  to  his  most  curious  search,  there  appeared  no  symptom  of 
beginning  to  live  without  money.  May  we  not  discern  in  this 
system,  (by  which  the  mind,  it  is  evident,  may  perform  some  of 
the  most  expensive  functions  of  the  body, )  a  dream  of  a  moneyless 
millennium — a  first  step  towards  that  blessed  era  when  "  Biddle 
and  discounts"  will  be  read  of  like  "  Aaron  and  burnt-offerings" 
— ceremonies  which  once  made  it  necessary  for  a  high-priest, 
and  an  altar  at  which  the  innocent  suffered  for  the  guilty,  but 
which  shall  have  passed  away  in  •'.he  blessed  progress  of  the 
millennium  ? 

If  I  may  make  a  grave  remark  to  you,  dear  Doctor,  I  think 
the  whole  bent  and  spirit  of  the  age  we  live  in,  is,  to  make  light 
of  matter.  Religion,  which  used  to  be  seated  in  the  heart,  is, 
by  tte  new  light  of  Channing,  addresed  purely  to  the  intellect. 


INTELLECTUAL  AGE.  45 


The  feelings  and  passions,  which  are  bodily  affections,  have  less 
to  do  with  it  than  the  mind.  To  eat  with  science  and  drink 
hard,  were  once  passports  to  society.  To  think  shrewdly  and 
talk  well,  carry  it  now.  Headaches  were  cured  by  pills,  which 
now  yield  to  magnetic  fluid — nothing  so  subtle.  If  we  travelled 
once,  it  must  be  by  pulling  of  solid  muscle.  Rarefied  air  does  it 
now,  better  than  horses.  War  has  yielded  to  negotiation.  A 
strong  man  is  no  better  than  a  weak  one.  Electro-magnetism 
will  soon  do  all  the  work  of  the  world,  and  men's  muscles  will 
be  so  much  weight — no  more.  The  amount  of  it  is,  that  we  are 
Gradually  learning  to  do  without  our  bodies.  The  next  great  dis- 
covery will  probably  be  some  pleasant  contrivance  for  getting 
out  of  them,  as  the  butterfly  sheds  his  worm.  Then,  indeed, 
having  no  pockets,  and  no  "  corpus"  for  your  "  habeas"  we  can 
dispense  with  money  and  its  consequences,  and  lo !  the  mil- 
lennium !  Having  no  stomachs  to  care  for,  there  will  be  much 
cause  of  sin  done  away,  for,  in  most  penal  iniquities,  the  stomach 
is  at  the  bottom.  Think  what  smoothness  will  follow  in  "  the 
course  of  true  love" — money  coming  never  between  !  It  looks  ill 
for  your  profession,  dear  Doctor.  We  shall  have  no  need  of 
physic.  The  fee  will  go  to  him  who  "  ministers  to  the  mind 
diseased" — probably  the  clergy.  (Mem.  to  put  your  children 
in  the  church.)  I  am  afraid  crowded  parties  will  go  out  of  fash- 
ion— it  would  be  so  difficult  to  separate  one's  globule  in  case  of 
"  mixed  society" — yet  the  extrication  of  gases  might  be  improved 
upon.  Fancy  a  lady  and  gentleman  made  "  common  air"  of,  by 
the  mixture  of  their  "oxygen  and  hydrogen !" 

What  most  pleases  me  in  the  prospect  of  this  Swedenborg 
^rder  of  things,  is  the  probable  improvement  in  the  laws.     In 


46  LETTER  IV. 


jhe  physical  age  passing  away,  we  have  legislated  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  body,  but  no  pains  or  penalties  for  wounds  upon  its 
more  sensitive  inhabitant — murder  to  break  the  snail's  shell,  but 
innocent  pastime  to  thrust  a  pin  into  the  snail.  In  the  new 
order  of  things,  we  shall  have  penal  laws  for  the  protection  of  the 
sensibilities — whether  they  be  touched  through  the  fancy,  the 
judgment,  or  the  personal  digni'ty.  Those  will  be  days  for  poets  ! 
Critics  will  be  hanged— or  worse.  A  sneer  will  be  manslaughter. 
Ridicule  will  be  a  deadly  weapon,  only  justifiable  when  used  in 
defence  of  life.  For  scandal,  imprisonment  from  ten  to  forty 
years,  at  the  mercy  of  the  court.  All  attacks  upon  honor,  honesty, 
or  innocence,  capital  crimes.  That  the  London  Quarterly  ever 
existed,  will  be  classed  with  such  historical  enormities  as  the 
Inquisition,  and  torture  for  witchcraft ;  and  "  to  be  Lockho.rted" 
will  mean,  then,  what  "  to  be  Burked"  means  now. 

You  will  say,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  the  "  ancient  mariner" 
of  letter-writers — telling  my  tale  out  of  all  apropos-ity.  But, 
after  some  consideration,  I  have  made  up  my  mind,  that  a  man 
who  is  at  all  addicted  to  revery,  must  have  one  or  two  escape- 
valves — a  journal  or  a  very  random  correspondence.  For  reasons 
many  and  good,  I  prefer  the  latter ;  and  the  best  of  those  reasons 
is  my  good  fortune  in  possessing  a  friend  like  yourself,  who  is 
above  "  proprieties,"  (prosodically  speaking,)  and  so  you  have 
6ocome  to  me,  what  Asia  was  to  Prometheus — 

t 

"  When  his  being  overflowed, 

Was  like  a  golden  chalice  to  bright  wine, 
Which  else  had  sunk  into  the  thirsty  dust." 

Talking  of  trout.     We  emerged  from  the  woods  of  Glenmary, 


BAITING  WITH  A  WORM.  47 


(you  left  me  there  in  my  last  letter,)  and  rounding  the  top  of  the 
hill,  which  serves  for  my  sunset  drop-curtain,  we  ran  down  a  mile 
to  a  brook  in  the  bed  of  a  low  valley.  It  rejoices  in  no  name, 
that  I  could  hear  of ;  but,  like  much  that  is  uncelebrated,  it  has 
its  virtues.  Leaving  William  to  tie  the  horse  to  a  hemlock,  and 
bring  on  the  basket,  we  started  up  the  stream ;  and,  coming  to  a 
cold  spring,  my  friend  sat  down  to  initiate  me  into  the  rudiments 
of  preparing  the  fly.  A  very  gay-coated  gentleman  was  selected, 
rather  handsomer  than  your  horse-fly,  and  whipped  upon  a  rod 
quite  too  taper  for  a  comparison. 

"  What  next  ?" 

"  Take  a  bit  of  worm  out  of  the  tin  box,  and  cover  the  barb 
of  the  hook  !" 

"  I  will.  Stay  !  where  are  the  bits  ?  I  see  nothing  here  but 
full-length  worms,  crawling  about,  with  every  one  his  complement 
of  extremities — not  a  tail  astray." 

"Bah!  pull  a  bit  off!" 

"  What !  you  don't  mean  that  i  am  to  pull  one  of  these  squirm- 
ing unfortunates  in  two  ?" 

"Certainly!" 

"  Well,  come  !  that  seems  to  me  rather  a  liberty.  I  grant  you 
'my  education  has  been  neglected/  but,  my  dear  F.,  there  is 
mercy  in  a  guillotine.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  the  death  of 
the  fish,  but  this  preliminary  horror  !" — 

"  Come  !  don't  be  a  woman  !" 

"  I  wish  I  were — I  should  have  a  pair  of  scissors.  Fancy 
having  your  leg  pulled  off,  my  good  fellow.  I  say  it  is  due  to 
the  poor  devil  that  the  operation  be  as  short  as  possible.  Sup- 
pose your  thumb  slip  ?" 


48  LETTER  IV. 


"  Why,  the  worm  feels  nothing !  Pain  is  in  the  imagination. 
Stay !  I'll  do  it  for  you— there  ?" 

What  the  remainder  of  the  worm  felt,  I  had  no  opportunity 
of  observing,  as  my  friend  thrust  the  tin  box  into  his  pocket 
immediately ;  but  the  "  bit"  which  he  dropped  into  the  palm  ol 
my  hand,  gave  every  symptom  of  extreme  astonishment,  to  say 
the  least.  The  passing  of  the  barb  of  the  hook  three  times 
through  him,  seemed  rather  to  increase  his  vitality,  and  looked 
to  me  as  little  like  happiness  as  anything  I  ever  saw  on  an  excur- 
sion of  pleasure.  Far  be  it  from  me,  to  pretend  to  more  sensi- 
bility than  Christopher  North,  or  Izaak  Walton.  The  latter  had 
his  humanities ;  and  Wilson,  of  all  the  men  I  have  ever  seen, 
carries,  most  marked  in  his  fine  face,  the  philter  which  bewitches 
affection.  But,  emulous  as  I  am  of  their  fame  as  anglers,  and 
modest  as  I  should  feel  at  introducing  innovations  upon  an  art  so 
refined,  I  must  venture  upon  some  less  primitive  instrument  than 
thumb  and  finger,  for  the  dismemberment  of  worms.  I  must 
take  scissors. 

I  had  never  seen  a  trout  caught,  in  my  life,  and  I  do  not  re- 
member at  this  moment  ever  having,  myself,  caught  a  fish,  of  any 
genus  or  gender.  My  first  lesson,  of  course,  was  to  see  the  thing 
done.  F.  stole  up  to  the  bank  of  the  stream,  as  if  his  tread 
might  waive  a  naiad,  and  threw  his  fly  into  a  circling,  black  pool, 
sparkling  with  brilliant  bubbles,  which  coiled  away  from  a  small 
brook-leap  in  the  shade.  The  same  instant  the  rod  bent,  and  a 
glittering  spotted  creature  rose  into  the  air,  swung  to  his  hand, 
and  was  dropped  into  the  basket.  Another  fling,  and  a  small 
trail  of  the  fly  on  the  water,  and  another  followed.  With  the 
third,  I  felt  a  curious  uneasiness  in  my  elbow,  extending  quickly 


THE  FIRST  TROUT.  49 


to  my  wrist — the  tingling  of  a  new-born  enthusiasm.  F.  had  taken 
up  the  stream,  and,  with  his  lips  apart,  and  body  bent  over,  like 
a  mortal  surprising  some  troop  of  fays  at  revel,  it  was  not  reason- 
able to  expect  him  to  remember  his  pupil.  So,  silently  I  turned 
down,  and  at  the  first  pool  threw  in  my  fly.  Something  bright 
seemed  born  at  the  instant  under  it,  and  the  slight  tilting  pull 
upon  the  pole  took  me  so  much  by  surprise,  that,  for  a  second,  I 
forgot  to  raise  it.  Up  came  the  bright  trout,  raining  the  silver 
water  from  his  back,  and,  at  the  second  swing  through  the  air, 
(for  I  had  not  yet  learned  the  sleight  of  the  fisher  to  bring  him 
quick  to  hand,)  he  dropped  into  the  pool,  and  was  gone.  I  had 
already  begun  to  take  his  part  against  myself,  and  detected  a 
pleased  thrill,  at  his  escape,  venturing  through  my  bosom.  I  sat 
down  upon  a  prostrate  pine,  to  new-Shylock  my  poor  worm. 
The  tin  box  was  in  F.'s  pocket !  Come !  here  was  a  relief.  As 
to  the  wild-wood  worms  that  might  be  dug  from  the  pine-tassels 
under  my  feet,  I  was  incapable  of  violating  their  forest  sanctuary. 
I  would  fish  no  more.  I  had  had  my  pleasure.  It  is  not  like  pulling 
up  a  stick  or  a  stone,  to  pull  up  a  resisting  trout.  It  is  a  peculiar 
sensation,  unimaginable  till  felt.  I  should  like  to  be  an  angler 
very  well,  but  for  the  worm  in  my  pocket. 

The  brook  at  my  feet,  and,  around  me,  pines  of  the  tallest  lift, 
by  thousands  !  You  may  travel  through  a  forest,  and  look  upon 
these  communicants  with  the  sky,  as  trees.  But  you  cannot  sit 
still  in  a  forest,  alone  and  silent,  without  feeling  the  awe  of  their 
presence.  Yet  the  brook  ran  and  sang  as  merrily,  in  their  black 
shadow,  as  in  the  open  sunshine  ;  and  the  woodpecker  played  nis 
sharp  hammer  on  a  tree  evergreen  for  centuries,  as  fearlessly  as 
on  a  shivering  poplar,  that  will  be  outlived  by  such  a  fish-catcher 

VOL.  i.  3 


50  LETTER  IV. 


as  I.  Truly,  this  is  a  world  in  which  there  is  small  recognition 
of  greatness.  As  it  is  in  the  forest,  so  it  is  in  the  town.  The 
very  gods  would  have  their  toes  trod  upon,  if  they  walked  with- 
out their  wings.  Yet  let  us  take  honor  to  ourselves  above  vege- 
tables. The  pine  beneath  me  has  been  a  giant,  with  his  top  in 
the  clouds,  but  lies  now  unvalued  on  the  earth.  We  recognize 
greatness  when  it  is  dead.  We  are  prodigal  of  love  and  honor 
when  it  is  unavailing  We  are,  in  something,  above  wood  and 
stubble. 

I  have  fallen  into  a  sad  trick,  dear  Doctor,  of  preaching  ser- 
mons to  myself,  from  these  texts  of  nature.  Sometimes,  like 
other  preachers,  I  pervert  the  meaning  and  forget  the  context, 
but  revery  would  lose  its  charm  if  it  went  by  reason.  Adieu ! 
Come  up  to  Glenmary,  and  catch  trout  if  you  will.  But  I  will 
have  your  worms  decently  drowned  before  boxed  for  use.  I  can- 
not sleep  o'  nights  after  slipping  one  of  these  harmless  creatures 
out  of  his  own  mouth,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  pull  him  asunder. 


LETTER   V. 

Mr  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  If  this  egg  hatch  without  getting  cold,  or,  to 
accommodate  my  language  to  your  city  apprehension,  if  the  letter 
I  here  begin  comes  to  a  finishing,  it  will  be  malgre,  blistering 
hands  and  weary  back — the  consequences  of  hard  raking — of  hay. 
The  men  are  taking  their  four  o'clock  of  cheese  and  cider  in  the 
meadow,  and,  not  having  simplified  my  digestion  as  rapidly  as  my 
habits,  I  have  retired  to  the  shelter  of  the  bridge,  to  be  decently 
rid  of  the  master's  first  bit  and  pull  at  the  pitcher.  After  em- 
ploying my  brains  in  vain,  to  discover  why  this  particular  branch 
of  farming  should  require  cider  and  cheese,  (eaten  together  at  no 
other  season  that  I  can  learn,)  I  have  pulled  out  my  scribble- 
book  from  the  niche  in  the  sleeper  overhead,  and  find,  by  luck, 
one  sheet  of  tabula  rasa,  upon  which  you  are  likely  to  pay  eigh- 
teen pence  to  Amos  Kendall. 

Were  you  ever  in  a  hay-field,  Doctor  ?  I  ask  for  information. 
Metaphorically,  I  know  you  "  live  in  clover" — meaning  the  so- 
ciety of  wits,  and  hock  of  a  certain  vintage — but  seriously,  did 
you  ever  happen  to  stand  on  the  natural  soil  of  the  earth,  off  the 
pavement  ?  If  you  have  not,  let  me  tell  you  it  is  a  very  pleas- 
ant change.  I  have  always  fancied  there  was  a  mixture  of  the 


52  LETTER  V. 


vegetable  in  myself ;  and  I  am  convinced,  now,  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  us  which  grows  more  thriftily  on  fresh  earth,  than  on 
flag-stones.  There  are  some  men  indigenous  to  brick  and  mor- 
tar, as  there  are  plants  which  thrive  best  with  a  stone  on  them  ; 
but  there  are  "  connecting  links"  between  all  the  varieties  of  God's 
works,  and  such  men  verge  on  the  mineral  kingdom.  I  have  seen 
whole  geodes  of  them,  with  all  the  properties  of  flints,  for  exam- 
ple. But  in  you,  my  dear  Doctor,  without  flattery,  I  think  I  see 
the  vegetable,  strong,  though  latent.  You  would  thrive  in  the 
country,  well  planted  and  a  little  pruned.  I  am  not  sure  it  would 
do  to  water  you  freely — but  you  want  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  and 
a  little  bird  to  shake  the  "  dew"  out  of  your  top. 

I  see,  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge,  a  fair  meadow,  laid  like 
an  unrolled  carpet  of  emerald  along  the  windings  of  a  most  bright 
and  swift  river.  The  first  owner  of  it,  after  the  savage,  all  honor 
to  his  memory,  sprinkled  it  with  forest  trees,  now  at  their  loftiest 
growth,  here  and  there  one,  stately  in  the  smooth  grass,  like  a 
polished  monarch  on  the  foot-cloth  of  his  throne.  The  river  is 
the  Owaga,  and  its  opposite  bank  is  darkened  with  thick  wood, 
through  which  a  liberal  neighbor  has  allowed  me  to  cut  an  eye- 
path  to  the  village  spire — a  mile  across  the  fields.  From  my 
cottage  door,  across  this  meadow-lawn,  steals,  with  silver  foot,  the 
brook  I  redeemed  from  its  lost  strayings,  and,  all  along  between 
brook  and  river,  stand  haycocks,  not  fairies.  Now,  possess  me  as 
well  of  your  whereabout — what  you  see  from  your  window  in 
Broadway !  Is  there  a  sapling  on  my  whole  farm  that  would 
ihange  root-hold  with  you  ? 

The  hay  is  heavy  this  year,  and  if  there  were  less,  I  should 
still  feel  like  taking  my  hat  off  tc  the  meadow.  There  is  nothing 


SPRAGUE,  THE  POET.  58 


like  living  in  the  city,  to  impress  one  with  the  gratuitous  liberality 
of  the  services  rendered  one  in  the  country.  Here  are  meadows 
now,  that,  without  hint  or  petition,  pressing  or  encouragement, 
pay  or  consideration,  nay,  careless  even  of  gratitude,  shoot  me  up 
some  billions  of  grass-blades,  clover-flowers,  white  and  red,  and 
here  and  there  a  nodding  regiment  of  lilies,  tall  as  my  chin  ;  and 
it  is  understood,  I  believe,  that  I  am  welcome  to  it  all.  Now, 
you  may  think  this  is  all  easy  enough,  and  the  meadow  is  happy 
to  be  relieved ;  but  so  the  beggar  might  think  of  your  alms,  and 
be  as  just.  But  you  have  made  the  money  you  give  him  by  the 
sweat  of  your  brow.  So  has  the  meadow  its  grass.  "  It  is  esti- 
mated," says  the  Book  of  Nature,  "  that  an  acre  of  grass-land 
transpires,  in  twenty-four  hours,  not  less  than  six  thousand  four 
hundred  quarts  of  water."  Sweat  me  that  without  a  fee,  thou 
dollar  a  visit ! 

Here  comes  William  from  the  post,  with  a  handful  of  papers. 
The  Mirror,  with  a  likeness  of  Sprague.  A  likeness  in  a  mirror 
could  scarce  fail,  one  would  think,  and  here,  accordingly  he 
is — the  banker-poet,  the  Rogers  of  our  country — fit  as  "  him- 
self to  be  his  parallel."  Yet  I  have  never  seen  that  stern 
look  on  him.  We  know  he  bears  the  ''  globe"*  on  his  back, 
like  old  Atlas,  but  he  is  more  urbane  than  the  world-bearer.  He 
keeps  a  muscle  unstrained  for  a  smile.  A  more  courteous  gen- 
tleman stands  not  by  Mammon's  altar — no,  nor  by  the  lip  of  Heli- 
con— yet  this  is  somewhat  stern.  In  what  character,  if  you 
please,  Mr.  Harding  ?  Sat  Plutus,  or  Apollo,  astride  your  optic 
nerve  when  you  drew  that  picture  ?  It  may  be  a  look  he  has, 

*  Mr.  Sprague  is  cashier  of  tho  Globe  Bank,  in  Boston. 


54  LETTER  V 


but,  fine  head  as  it  stands  on  paper,  they  who  form  from  it  an 
idea  of  the  man,  would  be  agreeably  disappointed  in  meeting  him. 
And  this,  which  is  a  merit  in  most  pictures,  is  a  fault  in  one  which 
posterity  is  to  look  at. 

Sprague  has  the  reputation  of  being  a  most  able  financier.  Yet 
he  is  not  a  rich  man — best  evidence  in  the  world  that  he  puts 
his  genius  into  his  calculations,  for  it  is  the  nature  of  uncommon 
gifts  to  do  good  to  all  but  their  possessor.  That  he  is  a  poet, 
and  a  true  and  high  one,  has  been  not  so  much  acknowledged  by 
criticism,  as  felt  in  the  republic.  The  great  army  of  editors,  who 
paragraph  upon  one  name,  as  an  entry  of  college-boys  will  play 
upon  one  flute,  till  the  neighborhood  would  rather  listen  to  a 
voluntary  on  shovel  and  tongs,  have  not  made  his  name  diurnal 
and  hebdomadal ;  but  his  poetry  is  diffused  by  more  unjostled 
avenues,  to  the  understandings  and  hearts  of  his  countrymen.  I, 
for  one,  think  he  is  a  better  banker  for  his  genius,  as  with  the 
same  power  he  would  have  made  a  better  soldier,  statesman,  far- 
mer, what  you  will.  I  have  seen  excellent  poetry  from  the  hand 
of  Plutus — (Biddle,  I  should  have  said,  but  I  never  scratch  out, 
to  you) — yet  he  has  but  ruffled  the  muse,  while  Sprague  has 
courted  her.  Our  Theodore,*  Uen-aime,  at  the  court  of  Berlin, 
writes  a  better  dispatch,  I  warrant  you,  than  a  fellow  born  of 
red  tape  and  fed  on  sealing-wax  at  the  department.  I  am  afraid 
the  genius  of  poor  John  Quincy  Adams  is  more  limited.  He  is 
only  the  best  president  we  have  had  since  Washington — not  a 
poet,  though  he  has  a  volume  in  press.  Briareus  is  not  the 
father  of  all  who  will  have  a  niche.  Shelley  would  have  made 

*  Theodore  Fay,  secretary  of  the  American  embassy  to  Prussia. 


WHAT  IS  GEMUS  ?  55 

an  unsafe  banker,  for  he  was  prodigal  of  stuff.  Pope,  Rogers, 
Crabbe,  Sprague,  Halleck,  waste  no  gold,  even  in  poetry.  Every 
idea  gets  his  due  of  those  poets,  and  no  more ;  and  Pope  and 
Crabbe,  by  the  same  token,  would  have  made  as  good  bankers  as 
Sprague  and  Rogers.  We  are  under  some  mistake  about  genius, 
my  dear  Doctor.  I'll  just  step  in-doors,  and  find  a  definition  of 
it  in  the  library. 

Really,  the  sun  is  hot  enough,  as  Sancho  says,  to  fry  the  brains 
in  a  man's  skull. 

"  Genius,"  says  the  best  philosophical  book  I  know  of,  "  wher» 
ever  it  is  found,  and  to  whatever  purpose  directed,  is  mental 
power.  It  distinguishes  the  man  of  fine  phrensy,  as  Shakspeare 
expresses  it,  from  the  man  of  mere  phrensy.  It  is  a  sort  of  in- 
stantaneous insight,  that  gives  us  knowledge  without  going  to 
school  for  it.  Sometimes  it  is  directed  to  one  subject,  sometimes 
to  another  ;  but  under  whatever  form  it  exhibits  itself,  it  enables 
the  individual  who  possesses  it,  to  make  a  wonderful,  and  almost 
miraculous  progress  in  the  line  of  his  pursuit." 

Si  non  e  vero,  e  ben  trovato.  If  philosophy  were  more  popular, 
we  should  have  Irving  for  president,  Halleck  for  governor  of 
Iowa,  and  Bryant  envoy  to  Texas.  But  genius,  to  the  multitude, 
is  a  phantom  without  mouth,  pockets,  or  hands — incapable  of 
work,  unaccustomed  to  food,  ignorant  of  the  uses  of  coin,  and  unfit 
candidate,  consequently,  for  any  manner  of  loaves  and  fishes.  A 
few  more  Spragues  would  leaven  this  lump  of  narrow  prejudice. 

I  wish  you  would  kill  off  your  patients,  dear  Doctor,  and  con- 
trive to  be  with  us  at  the  agricultural  show.  I  flatter  myself  I 
shall  take  the  prize  for  turnips.  By  the  way,  to  answer  your 
question  while  I  think  of  it,  that  is  the  reason  why  I  am  not  at 


56  LETTER  V. 


Niagara,  "  taking  a  look  at  the  viceroy."  I  must  watch  my  tur- 
nipling.  I  met  Lord  Durham  once  or  twice  when  in  London, 
and  once  at  dinner  at  Lady  Blessington's.  I  was  excessively  in- 
terested, on  that  occasion,  by  the  tactics  of  D'Israeli,  who  had 
just  then  chipped  his  political  shell,  and  was  anxious  to  make  an 
impression  on  Lord  Durham,  whose  glory,  still  to  come,  was  con- 
fidently foretold  in  that  bright  circle.  I  rather  fancy  the  dinner 
was  made  to  give  Vivian  Grey  the  chance  ;  for  her  ladyship,  be- 
nevolent to  every  one,  has  helped  D'Israeli  to  "  imp  his  wing," 
with  a  devoted  friendship,  of  which  he  should  imbody,  in  his  ma- 
turest  work,  the  delicacy  and  fervor.  Women  are  glorious  friends 
to  stead  ambition ;  but  effective  as  they  all  can  be,  few  have  the 
tact,  and  fewer  the  varied  means,  of  the  lady  in  question.  The 
guests  dropped  in,  announced  but  unseen,  in  the  dim  twilight ; 
and,  when  Lord  Durham  came,  I  could  only  see  that  he  was  of 
middle  stature,  and  of  a  naturally  cold  address.  Bulwer  spoke 
to  him,  but  he  was  introduced  to  no  one — a  departure  from  the 
custom  of  that  maison  sans-gene,  which  was  either  a  tribute  to  his 
lordship's  reserve,  or  a  ruse  on  the  part  of  Lady  Blessington,  to 
secure  to  D'Israeli  the  advantage  of  having  his  acquaintance 
sought — successful,  if  so;  for  Lord  Durham,  after  dinner,  re- 
quested a  formal  introduction  to  him.  But  for  D'Orsay,  who 
sparkles,  as  he  does  everything  else,  out  of  rule,  and  in  splendid 
defiance  of  others'  dullness,  the  soup  and  the  first  half  hour  of 
dinner  would  have  passed  off,  with  the  usual  English  fashion  of 
earnest  silence.  I  looked  over  my  spoon  at  the  future  premier — a 
dark,  saturnine  man,  with  very  black  hair,  combed  very  smooth—- 
and wondered  how  a  heart,  with  the  turbulent  ambitions,  and 
disciplined  energies  which  were  stirring,  I  knew,  in  his,  could  be 


LORD   DURHAM  AND   D  ISRAELI.  57 


concealed  under  that  polished  and  marble  tranquillity  of  mien 
and  manner.     He  spoke  to  Lady  Blessington  in  an  under-tone, 
replying  with  a  placid  serenity  that  never  reached  a  smile,  to  so 
much   of  D'Orsay's  champagne  wit  as  threw  its  sparkle  in  his 
way,  and  Bulwer  and  D 'Israeli  were  silent  altogether.     I  should 
have  foreboded  a  dull  dinner  if,  in  the  open  brow,  the  clear  sunny 
eye,  and  unembarrassed  repose  of  the  beautiful  and  expressive 
mouth  of  Lady  Blessington,  I  had  not  read  the  promise  of  a  change. 
It  came  presently.     With  a  tact,  of  which  the  subtle  ease  and 
grace  can  in  no  way  be  conveyed  into  description,  she  gathered 
up  the  cobweb  threads  of  conversation  going  on  at  different  parts 
of  the  table,  and  by  the  most  apparent  accident,  flung  them  into 
D'Israeli's  fingers,  like  the  ribands  of  a  four-in-hand.     And,  if  so 
coarse  a  figure  can  illustrate   it,  he  took  the  whip-hand  like  a 
taster.     It  was  an  appeal  to  his  opinion  on  a  subject  he  well 
nderstood,  and  he  burst  at  once,  without  preface,  into  that  fiery 
ein  of  eloquence  which,  hearing  many  times  after,  and  always 
nth  new  delight,  have  stamped  D'Israeli  on  my  mind  as  the 
Qost  wonderful  talker  I  have  ever  had  the  fortune  to  meet.     He 
•s  anything  but  a  declaimer.     You  would  never  think  him  on 
lilts.    If  he  catches  himself  in  a  rhetorical  sentence,  he  mocks  at 
t  in  the  next  breath.      He  is  satirical,  contemptuous,  pathetic, 
mmorous,  everything  in  a  moment ;  and  his  conversation  on  any 
ubject  whatever,  embraces  the  omnibus  rebus,  et  quibusdam  aliis. 
\.dd  to  this,  that  D'Israeli's  is  the  most  intellectual  face  in  Eng- 
and — pale,  regular,  and  overshadowed  with  the  most  luxuriant 
nasses  of  raven-black  hair ;  and  you   will  scarce  wonder  that, 
neeting  him  for  the  first  lime,  Lord  Durham  was,  (as  he  was  ex- 
pected to  be  by  the  Aspasia  of  that  London  Academe,)  impressed. 


58  LETTER  V. 


He  was  not  carried  away  as  we  were.  That  would  have  been 
unlike  Lord  Durham.  He  gave  his  whole  mind  to  the  brilliant 
meteor  blazing  before  him  ;  but  the  telescope  of  judgment  was  in 
his  hand — to  withdraw  at  pleasure.  He  has  evidently,  native  to 
his  blood,  that  great  quality  of  a  statesman — retenu.  D 'Israeli 
and  he  formed  at  the  moment  a  finely  contrasted  picture.  Un- 
derstanding his  game  perfectly,  the  author  deferred,  constantly 
and  adroitly,  to  the  opinion  of  his  noble  listener,  shaped  his  argu- 
ment by  his  suggestions,  allowed  him  to  say  nothing  without 
using  it  as  the  nucleus  of  some  new  turn  to  his  eloquence ;  and  all 
this,  with  an  apparent  effort  against  it,  as  if  he  had  desired  to  ad- 
dress himself  exclusively  to  Lady  Blessington,  but  was  compelled, 
by  a  superior  intellectual  magnetism,  to  turn  aside  and  pay  horc  • 
age  to  her  guest.  With  all  this  instinctive  management  there  was 
a  flashing  abandon  in  his  language  and  choice  of  illustration,  a 
kindling  of  his  eye,  and,  what  I  have  before  described,  a  positne 
foaming  at  his  lips,  which,  contrasted  with  the  warm  but  clear 
and  penetrating  eye  of  Lord  Durham,  his  calm  yet  earnest  fea- 
tures, and  lips  closed  without  compression,  formed,  as  I  said,  a 
picture,  and  of  an  order  worth  remembering  in  poetry.  Without 
meaning  any  disrespect  to  D 'Israeli,  whom  I  admire  as  much  as 
any  man  in  England,  I  remarked  to  my  neighbor,  a  celebrated 
artist,  that  it  would  make  a  glorious  drawing  of  Satan  tempting 
an  archangel  to  rebel. 

Well — D'Israeli  is  in  Parliament,  and  Lord  Durham  on  the 
last  round  but  one  of  the  ladder  of  subject  greatness.  The  vice- 
roy will  be  premier,  no  doubt;  but  it  is  questionable  if  the 
author  of  Vivian  Grey  does  more  than  carry  out  the  moral  of  his 
own  tale.  Talking  at  a  brilliant  table,  with  an  indulgent  and 


UPHOLSTERY  OF  SUNSETS.  59 


superb  woman  on  the  watch  for  wit  and  eloquence,  and  rising  in 
the  face  of  a  cold,  common-sense  House  of  Commons,  on  the  look- 
out for  froth  and  humbug,  are  two  different  matters.  In  a  great 
crisis,  with  the  nation  in  a  tempest,  D 'Israeli  would  flash  across 
the  darkness  very  finely — but  he  will  never  do  for  the  calm  right- 
hand  of  a  premier.  I  wish  him,  I  am  sure,  evsry  success  in  the 
world;  but  I  trust  that  whatever  political  reverses  fall  to  his 
share,  they  will  drive  him  back  to  literature. 

I  have  written  this  last  sentence  in  the  red  light  of  sunset,  and 
I  must  be  out  to  see  my  trees  watered,  and  my  kine  driven 
a-field  after  their  milking.  What  a  coverlet  of  glory  the  day- 
god  draws  about  him  for  his  repose !  I  should  like  curtains  of 
that  burnt  crimson.  If  I  have  a  passion  in  the  world,  it  is  for 
that  royal  trade,  upholstery ;  and  so  thought  George  the  Fourth, 
and  so  thinks  Sultan  Mahmoud,  who,  with  his  own  henna-tipped 
fingers,  assisted  by  his  assembled  harem,  arranges  every  fold  of 
drapery  in  the  seraglio.  If  poetry  fail,  I'll  try  the  profession 
some  day  en  grand,  and  meantime  let  me  go  out  and  study  one 
of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  varieties  of  couch-drapery 
in  the  west. 


LETTER   VI. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR  :     Your  letter  contained 

"  a  few  of  the  unpleasantest  -words 
That  e'er  were  writ  on  paper  !" 

Why  should  you  not  pass  August  at  Glenmary  ?  Have  your 
patients  bought  you,  body  and  soul  ?  Is  there,  no  "  night-bell " 
in  the  city  but  yours  ?  Have  you  no  practice  in  the  country,  my 
dear  Esculapius  ?  Faith !  I'll  be  ill !  By  the  time  you  reach 
here,  I  shall  be  a  "  case."  I  have  not  had  a  headache  now  in 
twenty  years,  and  my  constitution  requires  a  change.  I'll  begin 
by  eating  the  cucumbers  we  had  saved  for  your  visit,  and  you 
know  the  consequences.  Mix  me  a  pill  for  the  cholera — first, 
second,  or  third  stage  of  the  disease,  according  to  your  speed — 
and  come  with  what  haste  you  may.  If  you  arrive  too  late,  you 
lose  your  fee,  but  I'll  return  your  visit,  by  the  honor  of  a  ghost. 
By  the  way,  as  a  matter  of  information,  do  you  charge  in  such 
cases  ?  Or,  the  man  being  dead,  do  you  deduct  for  not  feeling 
his  pulse,  nor  telling  him  the  name  of  his  damaged  organ  in 
Latin  ?  It  should  be  half-price,  I  think — these  items  off.  Let 
me  know  by  express  mail,  as  one  lik<s  to  be  prepared. 


NARROWS  OF  THE  SUSQUEHANNAH.        Cl 


Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  added  the  Chemung  river  to  my 
list  of  acquaintances.  It  was  done  a  Vimprovista,  as  most  pleas- 
ant things  are.  We  were  driving  to  the  village  on  some  early 
errand,  and  met  a  friend  at  the  cross-roads,  bound  with  an  inva- 
lid to  Avon  Springs.  He  was  driving  his  own  horses,  and  pro- 
posed to  us  to  set  him  a  day's  journey  on  his  way.  I  had  hay 
to  cut,  but  the  day  was  made  for  truants — bright,  breezy,  and 
exhilarating ;  and,  as  I  looked  over  my  shoulder,  the  only  diffi- 
culty vanished,  for  there  stood  a  pedlar  chaffering  for  a  horn- 
comb  with  a  girl  at  a  well.  We  provided  for  a  night's  toilet 
from  his  tin-box,  and,  easing  off  the  check-reins  a  couple  of  holes, 
to  enlighten  my  ponies  as  to  the  change  in  their  day's  work,  we 
struck  into  the  traveller's  trot,  and  sped  away  into  the  eye  of  a 
southwest  breeze,  happy  as  urchins  when  the  schoolmaster  is  on 
a  jury. 

When  you  come  here,  I  shall  drive  you  to  the  Narrows  of  the 
Susquehannah.  That  is  a  word,  nota  bene,  which,  in  this  degree 
of  latitude,  refers  not  at  all  to  the  breadth  of  the  stream.  It  is  a 
place  where  the  mountain,  like  many  a  frowning  coward,  threat- 
ens to  crowd  its  gentler  neighbor,  but  gives  room  at  its  calm 
approach,  and  annoys  nobody  but  the  passer-by.  The  road  be- 
tween them,  as  you  come  on,  looks  etched  with  a  thumb-nail 
along  the  base  of  the  cliff,  and  you  would  think  it  a  pokerish 
drive,  making  no  allowance  for  perspective.  The  friable  rock, 
however,  makes  rather  a  smooth  single  track  ;  and  if  you  have  the 
inside  when  you  meet  Farmer  Giles  or  the  stage-coach,  you  have 
only  to  set  your  hub  against  the  rock,  and  "  let  them  go  by  as 
likes."  The  majestic  and  tranquil  river  sweeps  into  the  peaked 
shadow,  and  on  again,  with  the  disdain  of  a  beauty  used  to  con- 


62  LETTER  VI. 


quer.  It  reminded  me  of  Lady  Blessington's  "  do  if  you  dare !'' 
when  the  mob  at  the  House  of  Lords  threatened  to  break  her 
charigt  windows.  There  was  a  calm  courage  in  Miladi's  French 
glove  that  carried  her  through,  and  so,  amid  this  mob  of  moun- 
tains, glides  the  Susquehannah  to  the  sea. 

While  I  am  here,  let  me  jot  down  an  observation  worthy  the 
notice  of  Mr.  Capability  Brown.  This  cliff  falls  into  a  line  of 
hills  running  from  northwest  to  southeast,  and,  by  five  in  the  sum- 
mer afternoon,  their  tall  shoulders  have  nudged  the  sun,  and  the 
long,  level  road  at  their  bases  lies  in  deep  shadow,  for  miles  along 
the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah.  "  Consequence  is,"  as  my  friend 
of  the  "Albany  Daily,"  says,  we  can  steal  a  march  upon  twilight, 
and  take  a  cool  drive  before  tea.  What  the  ruination  shops  on 
the  west  side  of  Broadway  are,  to  you,  this  spur  of  the  Allegha- 
nies  is,  to  me,  (minus  the  plate-glass,  and  the  temptations.)  I 
ralue  this — for  the  afternoons  in  July  and  August  are  hot  and 
long ;  the  breeze  dies  away,  the  flies  get  in-doors,  and,  with  the 
desire  for  motion,  yet  no  ability  to  stir,  one  longs  for  a  ride  with 
Ariel  through  "the  veins  o'  the  earth."  Mr.  C.  Brown,  now, 
would  mark  me  down,  for  this  privilege  of  road  well  shaded,  some 
twenty  pound  in  the  rent.  He  is  a  man  in  England  who  trades 
upon  his  taste.  He  goes  to  your  country-seat  to  tell  you  what 
can  be  done  with  it — what  are  its  unimproved  advantages,  what 
to  do  with  your  wood,  and  what  with  your  water.  He  would 
rate  this  shady  mountain  as  an  eligibility  in  the  site,  to  be  reck- 
oned, of  course,  as  income.  A  very  pleasant  man  is  Mr.  Brown ! 

It  occurs  to  me,  Doctor,  that  a  new  branch  of  this  gentleman's 
profession  might  be  profitable.  Why  not  set  up  a  shop  to  tell 
people  what  they  can  make  of  themselves  ?  I  have  a  great  mind 


TASTE,  AS  PROFESSION.  63 


to  take  out  a  patent  for  the  idea.  The  stock  in  trade  would  be 
two  chairs  and  a  green  curtain — (for  taste,  like  rouge,  should  be 
sold  privately) — not  expensive.  I  would  advertise  to  see  gentle- 
men in  the  morning,  ladies  in  the  evening,  "  secrecy  in  all  cases 
strictly  observed."  Few  people  of  either  sex  know  their  own  style. 
Your  Madonna  is  apt  to  romp,  for  instance,  and  your  romp  to  wear 
her  hair  plain  and  a  rosary.  Few  ladies  know  what  colors  they^ 
look  best  in — whether  smiles  or  tears  are  most  becoming,  whether 
they  appear  to  most  advantage  sitting,  like  Queen  Victoria  and 
Tom  Moore,  (and  this  involves  a  delicate  question,)  or,  standing 
and  walking.  The  world  is  full  of  people  who  mistake  their 
style — fish  for  your  net,  every  one.  How  many  women  are  never 
charming  till  they  forget  themselves  !  A  belle  is  a  woman  who 
knows  her  weapons — colors,  smiles,  moods,  caprices ;  who  has 
looked  at  her  face  in  the  glass,  like  an  artist,  and  knows  what  will 
lighten  a  defect  or  enhance  a  beauty.  The  art  is  as  rare  as  the 
belle.  "  Pourquoi  ?  my  dear  knight."  Because  taste  is,  where 
knowledge  was  before  the  discovery  of  printing — locked  up  with 
the  first  possessor.  Why  should  it  not  be  diffused  ?  What  a 
refuge  for  reduced  gentility  would  be  such  a  vocation !  What 
is  now  the  disease  of  fortunes  would  be  then  their  remedy; 
parents  would  cultivate  a  taste  for  eloquence  in  their  children, 
because  there  is  no  knowing  what  they  may  come  to — the  rea- 
son, now,  why  they  take  pains  to  repress  it. 

I  presume  it  is  in  consequence  of  the  diffusion  of  printing  that 
ignorance  of  the  law  is  no  apology  for  crime.  Were  taste  within 
reoch  of  all,  (there  might  be  dispensaries  for  the  poor,)  that 
"shocking  bad  hat"  of  yours,  my  dear  Doctor,  would  be  a  crim- 
inal offence.  Our  fat  friend  with  the  long-tailed  coat,  and  the 


64  LETTER  VI. 


waist  at  his  shoulder-blades,  would  be  liable  to  fine  for  misin- 
forming the  tailor  as  to  the  situation  of  his  hips — the  tailor  of 
course  not  to  blame,  having  nothing  to  go  by.  Two  scandalous 
old  maids  together  would  be  abated  as  a  nuisance — as  it  is  the 
quantity  of  tin  pots,  which,  in  a  concert  upon  that  tintinnabulary 
instrument,  constitutes  a  disturbance  of  the  peace.  The  reform 
t  would  be  endless.  I  am  not  sure  it  could  be  extended  to  bad 
taste  in  literature,  for,  like  rebellion,  the  crime  would  merge  in 
the  universality  of  the  offenders.  But  it  would  be  the  general 
putting  down  of  tame  monsters,  now  loose  on  society.  Pensez  y  ! 
What  should  you  think  of  dining,  with  a  woman  behind  your 
chair  worth  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling — well  in- 
vested ?  You  may  well  stare — but  unless  a  large  number  of 
sensible  people  are  very  much  mistaken,  you  may  do  so,  any  day, 
for  some  three  shillings,  at  a  small  inn  on  the  Susquehannah. 
Those  who  know  the  road,  leave  behind  them  a  showy,  porticoed 
tavern,  new,  and  carefully  divested  of  all  trees  and  grass,  and 
pull  up  at  the  door  of  the  old  inn  at  the  place — a  low,  old- 
fashioned  house,  built  on  a  brook-side,  and  with  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  comfortable  farm-house,  save  only  a  leaning  and 
antiquated  sign-post.  Here  lives  a  farmer  well  off  in  the  world, 
a  good-natured  old  man,  who  for  some  years  has  not  meant,  to 
keep  open  tavern ;  but  from  the  trouble  of  taking  down  his  sign- 
post, or  the  habit,  and  acquaintance  with  travellers,  gives  all 
who  come  what  chance  fare  may  be  under  the  roof,  and  at  the 
old  prices  common  in  days  when  the  bill  was  not  ridden  by 
leagues  of  white  paint  and  portico.  His  dame,  the  heiress,  is  a 
tall  and  erect  woman  of  fifty,  ("  or,  by'r  lady,  threescore,")  a 
smiling,  intelligent,  ready  hostess,  with  the  natural  manners  of 


WEALTH  UNCLAIMED. 


>  gentlewoman.  Now  and  then,  a  pale  daughter,  unmarried,  and 
twenty-four  or  younger,  looks  into  the  white-washed  parlor,  and, 
if  the  farmer  is  home  from  the  field,  he  sits  down  with  his  hat 
on,  and  lends  you  a  chat  with  a  voice  sound  and  hearty  as  the 
smell  of  hay.  It  is  altogether  a  pleasant  place  to  loiter  away 
the  noon ;  and  though  it  was  early  for  dinner  when  we  arrived, 
we  put  up  our  horses,  (the  men  were  all  a-field,)  and  Dame 
Raymond  spread  her  white  cloth,  and  set  on  her  cherry-pie, 
while  her  daughter  broiled  for  us  the  de  quoi  of  the  larder,  in  the 
shape  of  a  salt  mackerel.  The  key  of  the  "bin"  was  in  her 
pocket,  and  we  were  young  enough,  the  dame  said,  as  she  gave 
it  to  us,  to  feed  our  own  horses.  This  good  woman,  or  this  great 
lady,  is  the  only  daughter,  as  I  understand  it,  of  an  old  farmer, 
ninety  years  of  age,  who  has  fallen  heir  to  an  immense  fortune 
in  England.  He  was  traced  out,  several  years  ago,  by  the  execu- 
tors, and  the  proper  testimonials  of  the  property  placed  in  his 
hands ;  but  he  was  old,  and  his  child  was  well  off  and  happy, 
and  he  refused  to  put  himself  to  any  trouble  about  it.  Dame 
Raymond,  herself,  thought  England  a  great  way  off;  and 
the  pride  of  her  life  is  her  fine  chickens ;  and  to  go  so  far  upon 
the  strength  of  a  few  letters,  leaving  the  farm  and  hen-roost  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  was  an  undertaking  which,  she  felt, 
justified  Farmer  Raymond  in  shaking  his  head.  Lately,  an  en- 
terprising gentleman  in  the  neighborhood  has  taken  the  papers, 
and  she  consented  to  write  to  her  father,  who  willingly  made 
over  to  her  all  authority  in  the  matter.  The  claim,  I  under- 
stand, is  is  well  authenticated  as  paper  evidence  can  make  it,  and 
the  probability  is,  that,  in  a  few  months,  Dame  Raymond,  will  be 
more  troubled  with  her  riches  than  she  ever  was  with  her  chickens. 


66  LETTER  VI. 


We  dined  at  our  leisure,  and  had  plenty  of  sharp  gossip  with 
the  tall  hostess,  who  stood  to  serve  the  tea  from  a  side-table, 
and,  between  our  cups,  kept  the  flies  from  her  tempting  cherry- 
pie  and  brown  sugar,  with  a  large  fan.  I  have  not  often  seen 
a  more  shrewd  and  sensible  woman,  and  she  laughs  and  phi- 
losophizes about  her  large  fortune  in  a  way  that  satisfied  me 
she  would  laugh  just  as  cheerily  if  it  should  turn  out  a  bubble 
She  said  her  husband  had  told  her  "  it  was  best  not  to  be  proud, 
till  she  got  her  money."  The  only  symptom  that  I  detected,  of 
castle-building,  was  a  hint  she  let  slip  of  hoping  to  entertain 
travellers,  some  day,  in  a  better  house.  I  coupled  this  with  an- 
other remark,  and  suspected  that  the  new  tavern,  with  its  big 
portico  and  blazing  sign,  had  not  taken  the  wind  out  of  her  sails 
without  offence,  and  that,  perhaps,  the  only  use  of  her  money, 
on  which  she  had  determined,  was  to  build  a  bigger,  and  eclipse 
the  intruder. 

I  amused  myself  with  watching  her  as  she  bustled  about  .with 
old-fashioned  anxiety  to  anticipate  our  wants,  and  fancying  the 
changes  to  which  the  acquisition  of  this  immense  fortune  might 
introduce  her  in  England.  There  was  her  daughter,  whom  a 
little  millinery  would  improve  into  a  very  presentable  heiress, 
cooking  our  mackerel ;  while  Mrs.  Thwaites,  the  grocer's  widow 
in  London,  with  no  more  money  probably,  was  beset  by  half 
the  unmarried  noblemen  in  England — Lord  Lyndhurst,  it  is  said, 
the  most  pressing.  But  speculation  is  endless,  and  you  shall  go 
down  with  your  trout  line,  dear  Doctor,  and  spin  your  own  cob- 
webs while  Dame  Raymond  cooks  your  fish. 

I  have  spun  out  my  letter  to  such  a  length,  that  I  have  left, 
myself  no  room  to  prate  to  you  of  the  beauties  of  the  Chemung ; 


AN  HEIRESS.  6? 


but  you  are  likely  to  hear  enough  of  it,  for  it  is  a  subject  with 
•which  I  am,  just  now,  something  enamored.  I  think  you  share 
with  me  my  passion  for  rivers.  If  you  have  the  grace  to  come 
and  visit  us,  and  I  survive  the  cholera  you  have  brought  upon 
me,  we  will  visit  this  new  Naiad  in.  company,  and  take  Dame 
Raymond  in  our  way.  Adieu , 


LETTER   VII. 

I  AM  of  opinion,  dear  Doctor,  that  a  letter,  to  be  ita<3  urider- 
standingly,  should  have  marginal  references  to  the  state  of  the 
thermometer,  the  condition  of  the  writer's  digestion,  and  the 
quality  of  his  pen  and  ink,  at  the  time  of  writing.  These  mat- 
ters, if  they  do  not  affect  a  man's  belief  in  a  future  state,  very 
sensibly  operate  upon  his  style  of  composition ;  sometimes  (so 
with  me  at  least)  upon  his  sentiments  and  minor  morals. 

Like  most  other  pen-and-inklings  in  this  be-printed  country,  I 
commenced  authorship  at  precisely  the  wrong  end — criticism. 
]STever  having  put  my  hat  upon  more  than  one  or  two  grown-up 
thoughts,  I  still  felt  myself  qualified  to  pronounce  upon  any  man's 
literary  stature,  from  Walter  Scott  to  whom  you  please — God 
forgive  me  !  I  remember  (under  this  delusion  of  Sathan)  sitting 
down  to  review  a  book  by  one  of  the  most  sensible  women  in 
this  country.  It  was  a  pleasant  morning — favorable  symptom 
for  the  author.  I  wrote  the  name  of  the  book  at  the  head  of  a 
clean  sheet  of  Bath  post,  and  the  nib  of  my  pen  capered  nimbly 
away  into  a  flourish,  in  a  fashion  to  coax  praise  out  of  a  pump- 
kin. What  but  courtesy  on  so  bright  a  morning  and  with  so 
smooth  a  pen  ?  I  was  in  the  middle  of  the  page,  taking  breath 


EARLY  REVIEWING.  69 

after  a  Vmg  and  laudatory  sentence,  when,  puff!  through  the 
window  «ame  a  gust  of  air,  labelled  for  the  bare  nerves.  (If  you 
have  ev'ei  (been  in  Boston,  perhaps  you  have  observed  that  an 
east  wind,  in  that  city  of  blue  noses  in  June,  gives  you  a  sensa- 
tion like  being  suddenly  deprived  of  your  skin.)  In  a  shudder  of 
disgust  I  bore  Jown  upon  the  dot  of  an  i,  and  my  pen,  like  an 
"over-tried  friend,"  gave  way  under  the  pressure.  With  the 
wind  in  that  satiie  quarter,  dexterity  died.  After  vain  efforts 
to  mend  my  pen  to  its  original  daintiness,  I  amputated  the  nib 
to  a  broad  workixig  stump,  and  aimed  it  doggedly  at  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  paragraph.  But  my  wits  had  gone  about  with 
the  grasshopper  on  the  church-steeple.  Nothing  would  trickle 
from  that  stumpy  quill,  either  graceful  or  gracious ;  and,  having 
looked  through  the  book  but  with  a  view  to  find  matter  to  praise, 
I  was  obliged  to  run  it  over  anew  to  forage  for  the  east  wind. 
"  Hence  the  milk  in  the  cocoa-nut,"  as  the  showman  says  of 
the  monkey's  stealing  children.  I  wrote  a  savage  review,  which, 
the  reader  was  expected  to  believe,  contained  the  opinions  of 
the  reviewer  ! !  Oh,  Jupiter ! 

All  this  is  to  apologize,  not  for  my  own  letter,  which  I  intend 
to  be  a  pattern  of  good  humor,  but  for  a  passage  in  your  last, 
(if  written  upon  a  hard  egg  you  should  have  mentioned  it  in 
the  margin,)  in  which,  apropos  of  my  jaunt  to  the  Chemung, 
you  accuse  me  of  being  glad  to  get  away  from  my  hermitage. 
I  could  write  you  a  sermon,  now,  on  the  nature  of  content,  but 
you  would  say  the  very  text  is  apocryphal.  My  "  lastly,"  how- 
ever, would  go  to  prove  that  there  is  bigotry  in  retirement,  as 
in  all  things  either  good  or  pleasurable.  The  eye,  that  never 
grows  familiar  with  nature,  needs  freshening  from  all  things  else. 


YO  LETTER  VII. 

A  room,  a  chair,  a  musical  instrument,  a  horse,  a  dog,  the  road 
you  drive  daily,  and  the  well  you  drink  from,  are  all  more  prized 
when  left  and  returned  to.  The  habit  of  turning  back  daily  from 
a  certain  milestone,  in  your  drive,  makes  that  milestone,  after  a 
while,  a  prison  wall.  It  is  pleasant  to  pass  it,  though  the  road 
beyond  be  less  beautiful.  If  I  were  once  more  "  brave  Master 
Shoe-tie,  the  great  traveller,"  it  would  irk  me,  I  dare  say,  to  ride 
thirty  miles  in  a  rail-car  drawn  by  one  slow  horse.  Yet  it  is  a 
pleasant  "  lark,"  now,  to  run  down  to  Ithaca  for  a  night,  in  this 
drowsy  conveyance,  though  I  exchange  a  cool  cottage  for  a  fly- 
nest,  "  lavendered  linen"  for  abominable  cotton,  and  the  service 
of  civil  William  for  the  "  young  lady  that  takes  care  of  the 
chambers."  I  like  the  cobwebs  swept  out  of  my  eyes.  I  like  to 
know  what  reason  I  have  to  keep  my  temper  among  my  house- 
hold gods.  I  like  to  pay  an  extravagant  bill  for  villainous  enter- 
tainment abroad,  and  come  back  to  escape  ruin  in  the  luxuries  of 
home. 

Doctor !  were  you  ever  a  vagabond,  for  years  together  ?  I 
know  you  have  hung  your  hat  on  the  south  pole,  but  you  are 
one  of  those  "  friend  of  the  family"  men,  who  will  travel  fron: 
Dan  to  Beersheba,  and  be  at  no  charges  for  lodging.  You  can 
not  understand,  I  think,  the  life  from  which  I  have  escaped — the 
life  of  "mine  ease  in  mine  inn."  Pleasant  mockery !  You  have 
never  had  the  hotel  fever — never  sickened  of  the  copperplate 
human  faces  met  exclusively  in  those  homes  of  the  homeless — 
never  have  gone  distracted  at  the  eternal  "one  piece  of  soap, 
and  the  last  occupant's  tooth-brush  and  cigar !"  To  be  slighted., 
any  hour  of  the  evening,  for  a  pair  of  slippers  and  a  tin  candle- 
stick— to  sleep  and  wake  amid  the  din  of  animal  wants,  complain- 


HOTEL  LIFE.  71 


ing  and  supplied- — to  hear  no  variety  of  human  tone  but  the  ex- 
pression of  these  baser  necessities — to  be  waited  on,  either  by  fel- 
lows who  would  bring  your  coffin  as  unconcernedly  as  your 
breakfast,  or  by  a  woman  who  is  rude,  because  insulted  when 
kind — to  lie  always  in  strange  beds — to  gc  home  to  a  house  of 
strangers — to  be  weary  without  pity,  sick  without  soothing,  sad 
without  sympathy — to  sit  at  twilight  by  your  lonely  window,  in 
some  strange  city,  and,  with  a  heart  which  a  child's  voice  would 
dissolve  in  tenderness,  to  see  door  after  door  open  and  close  upon 
fathers,  brothers,  friends,  expected  and  welcomed  by  the  beloved 
and  the  beloving — these  are  costly  miseries  against  which  I  almost 
hourly  weigh  my  cheaper  happiness  in  a  home  !  Yet  this  is  the 
life  pined  after  by  the  grown-up  boy — the  life  called  fascinating 
and  mystified  in  romance — the  life,  dear  Doctor,  for  which  even 
yourself  can  fancy  I  am  "  imping  my  wing"  anew  !  Oh,  no  !  I 
have  served  seven  years  for  this  Rachel  of  contentment,  and  my 
heart  is  no  Laban  to  put  me  off  with  a  Leah. 

"  A  !"  Imagine  this  capital  letter  laid  on  its  back,  and  point- 
ed south  by  east,  and  you  have  a  pretty  fair  diagram  of  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Susquehannah  and  the  Chemung.  The  note  of  admira- 
tion describes  a  superb  line  of  mountains  at  the  back  of  the  Che- 
mung valley,  and  the  quotation  marks  express  the  fine  bluffs  that 
overlook  the  meeting  of  the  waters  at  Athens.  The  cross  of  the 
letter,  (say  a  line  of  four  miles,)  defines  a  road  from  one  river  to 
the  other,  by  which  travellers  up  the  Chemung  save  the  distance 
to  the  point  of  the  triangle,  and  the  area  between  is  a  broad 
plain,  just  now  as  fine  a  spectacle  of  teeming  harvest  as  you 
would  find  on  the  Genesee. 

A.s  the  road  touches  tl?£   Chemung,  you  pass  under  the  base 


72  LETTER  VII. 


of  a  round  mountain,  once  shaped  like  a  sugar-loaf,  but  now  with 
a  top  o'  the  fashion  of  a  schoolboy's  hat  punched  in  to  drink 
from ;  the  floor- worn  edge  of  the  felt  answering  to  a  fortification 

around  the  rim  of  the  hill,  built  by I  should  be  obliged  if 

you  would  tell  me  whom  !  They  call  it  Spanish  Hill,  and  the 
fortifications  were  old  at  the  time  of  the  passing  through  of  Sulli- 
yan's  army.  It  is  as  pretty  a  fort  as  my  Uncle  Toby  could  have 
seen  in  Flanders,  and  was,  doubtless,  occupied  by  gentlemen  sol- 
diers long  before  the  Mayflower  moored  off  the  rock  of  Plymouth. 
The  tradition  runs  that  an  Indian  chief  once  ascended  it  to  look 
for  Spanish  gold ;  but,  on  reaching  the  top,  was  enveloped  in 
clouds  and  thunder,  and  returned  with  a  solemn  command  from 
the  spirit  of  the  mountain  that  no  Indian  should  ever  set  his  foot 
on  it  again.  An  old  lady,  who  lives  in  the  neighborhood,  (famous 
for  killing  two  tories  with  a  stone  in  her  stocking,)  declares  that 
the  dread  of  this  mountain  is  universal  among  the  tribes,  and 
that  nothing  would  induce  a  red  man  to  ascend  it.  This  looks 
as  if  the  sachem  had  found  what  he  went  after ;  and  it  is  a 
modern  fact,  I  understand,  that  a  man,  hired  to  plough  on  the 
hillside,  suddenly  left  his  employer  and  purchased  a  large  farm, 
by  nobody  knows  what  windfall  of  fortune.  Half  this  mountain 
belongs  to  a  gentleman  who  is  building  a  country-seat  on  an  ex- 
quisite site  between  it  and  the  river,  and,  to  the  kindness  of  his 
son  and  daughter,  who  accompanied  us  in  our  ascent,  we  are 
indebted  for  a  most  pleasant  hour,  and  what  information  I  have 
given  you. 

.  I  will  slip  in,  here,  a  memorandum  for  any  invalid,  town- weary 
person,  or  new  married  couple,  to  whom  you  may  have  occasion, 
in  your  practice,  to  recommend  change  of  air  The  house  for- 


SCENERY  OF  THE  CHEMUNG.  73 


merly  occupied  by  this  gentleman,  a  roomy  mansion,  in  a  com- 
manding and  beautiful  situation,  is  now  open  as  an  inn ;  and  I 
know  nowhere  a  retreat  so  private  and  desirable.  It  is  near  both 
the  Susquehannah  and  the  Chemung,  the  hills  laced  with  trout- 
streams,  four  miles  from  Athens,  and  half  way  between  Owego 
and  Elmira.  The  scenery  all  about  is  delicious,  and  the  house 
well  kept,  at  country  charges.  My  cottage  is  some  sixteen  miles 
off;  and  if  you  give  any  of  your  patients  a  letter  to  me,  I  will 
drive  up  and  see  them,  with  a  posy  and  a  pot  of  jelly.  You  will 
understand  that  they  must  be  people  who  do  not  "add  perfume 
to  the  violet" — in  my  way — simple. 

I  can  in  no  way  give  you  an  idea  of  the  beauty  of  the  Che- 
mung river  from  Brigham's  inn  to  Elmira.  We  entered  immedi- 
ately upon  the  Narrows — a  spot  where  the  river  follows  into  a 
curve  of  the  mountain,  like  an  inlaying  of  silver  around  the  bottom 
of  an  emerald  cup — the  brightest  water,  the  richest  foliage — and 
a  landscape  of  meadow,  between  the  horns  of  the  crescent  that 
would  be  like  the  finest  park  scenery  in  England,  if  the  boldness 
of  the  horizon  did  not  mix  with  it  a  resemblance  to  Switzerland. 

We  reached  Elmira  at  sunset.  What  shall  I  say  of  it  ?  From 
a  distance,  its  situation  is  most  beautiful.  It  lies  (since  we  have 
begun  upon  the  alphabet)  in  the  tail  of  a  magnificent  L,  formed 
by  the  bright  winding  of  the  river.  Perhaps  the  surveyor,  instead 
of  deriving  its  name  from  his  sweetheart,  called  it  L.  mirabile — 
corrupted  to  vulgar  comprehension,  Elmira.  If  he  did  not,  he 
might,  and  I  will  lend  him  the  etymology. 

The  town  is  built  against  a  long  island,  covered  with  soft  green- 
rward,  and  sprinkled  with  noble  trees  ;  a  promenade  of  unequalled 
beauty  and  convenience,  but  that  all  which  a  village  can  muster 

VOL.    I.  4 


74  LETTER  VII. 


of  unsightliness  has  chosen  the  face  of  the  river  bank  "  to  turn 
its  lining  to  the  sun."  Fie  on  you,  Elmira !  I  intend  to  get  up 
a  memorial  to  Congress,  praying  that  the  banks  of  rivers,  in  all 
towns  settled  henceforth,  shall  be  government  property,  to  be 
reserved  and  planted  for  public  grounds.  It  was  the  design  of 
William  Penn  at  Philadelphia,  and  think  what  a  binding  it  would 
have  been  to  his  chequer-board.  Fancy  a  pier  and  promenade 
along  the  Hudson  at  New  York !  Imagine  it  a  feature  of  every 
town  in  this  land  of  glorious  rivers ! 

There  is  a  singular  hotel  at  Elmira,  (big  as  a  state-house,  and 
be-turreted  and  be-columned  according  to  the  most  approved  sys- 
tem of  impossible  rent  and  charges  to  make  it  possible,)  in  the 
plan  of  which,  curious  enough,  the  bed-rooms  were  entirely  forgot- 
ten. The  house  is  all  parlors  and  closets !  We  were  shown  into 
superb  drawing-rooms,  (one  for  each  party,)  with  pier-glasses, 
windows  to  the  floor,  expensive  furniture,  and  a  most  polite  land- 
lord ;  and  began  to  think  the  civilization  for  which  we  had  been 
looking  east,  had  stepped  over  our  heads  and  gone  on  to  the 
Pacific.  Excellent  supper  and  civil  service.  At  dark,  two  very 
taper  mutton  candles  set  on  the  superb  marble  table — but  that 
was  but  a  trifling  incongruity.  After  a  call  from  a  pleasant  friend 
or  two,  and  a  walk,  we  made  an  early  request  to  be  shown  to  our 
bed-rooms.  The  "  young  lady,  that  sometimes  uses  a  broom  for 
exercise,"  opened  a  closet-door  with  a  look  of  la  voila  !  and  left 
us  speechless  with  astonishment.  There  was  a  bed  of  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  saint's  niche,  but  no  window  by  which,  if  stifled,  the 
soul  could  escape  to  its  destination.  Yet  here  we  were,  evidently 
abandoned  on  a  hot  night  in  July,  with  a  door  to  shut  if  we 
thought  it  prudent,  and  a  candle-wick  like  an  ignited  poodle-dog, 


:tOMES  OF  GENIUS.  75 


to  assist  in  the  process  of  suffocation !  I  hesitated  about  calling 
up  the  landlord,  for,  as  I  said  before,  he  was  a  most  polite  and 
friendly  person  ;  and,  if  we  were  to  give  up  the  ghost  in  that  little 
room,  it  was  evidently  in  the  ordinary  arrangements  of  the  house. 
"  Why  not  sleep  in  the  parlor  ?"  you  will  have  said.  So  we  did. 
But,  like  the  king  of  Spain,  who  was  partly  roasted  because 
nobody  came  to  move  back  the  fire,  this  obvious  remedy  did  not 
at  the  instant  occUr  to  me.  The  pier-glass  and  other  splendors 
of  course  did  duty  as  bed-room  furniture,  and,  I  may  say,  we 
slept  sumptuously.  Our  friends  in  the  opposite  parlor  did  as  we 
did,  but  took  the  moving  of  the  bed  to  be,  tout  bonnement,  what 
the  landlord  expected.  I  do  not  think  so,  yet  I  was  well  pleased 
with  him  and  his  entertainment,  and  shall  stop  at  the  "  Eagle" 
invariably — if  I  can  choose  my  apartment.  I  am  not  sure 
but,  in  other  parts  of  the  house,  the  bloodthirsty  architect  has 
constructed  some  of  these  smothering  places  without  parlors. 
God  help  the  unwary  traveller  ! 

Talking  of  home,  (we  were  at  home  to  dinner  the  next  day,)  I 
wonder  whether  it  is  true  that  adverse  fortunes  have  thrown  Mrs. 
Sigourney's  beautiful  home  into  the  market.  It  is  offered  for 
sale,  and  the  newspapers  say  as  much.  If  so,  it  is  pity,  indeed. 
I  was  there  once ;  and  to  leave  so  delicious  a  spot  must,  I  think, 
breed  a  heart-ache.  In  general,  unless  the  reverse  is  extreme, 
compassion  is  thrown  away  on  those  who  leave  a  large  house  to 
be  comfortable  in  a  small  one ;  but  she  is  a  poetess,  and  a  most 
true  and  sweet  one,  and  has  a  property  in  that  house,  and  in  all 
its  trees  and  flowers,  which  can  neither  be  bought  nor  sold.  It 
is  robbery  to  sell  it  for  its  apparent  value.  You  can  understand, 
for  "your  spirit  is  touched  to  these  fine  issues,"  how  a  tree  that 


76  LETTER  VII. 


the  eye  of  genius  has  rested  on,  while  the  mind  was  at  work 
among  its  bright  fancies,  becomes  the  cradle  and  home  of  these 
fancies.  The  brain  seems  driven  out  of  its  workshop  if  you  cut 
it  down.  So  with  walks.  So  with  streams.  So  with  the  modifi- 
cations of  natural  beauty  seen  thence  habitually — sunrise,  sunset - 
ting,  moonlight.  In  peculiar  places  these  daily  glories  take 
peculiar  effects,  and  in  that  guise  genius  becomes  accustomed  to 
recognize  and  love  them  most.  Who  can  buy  this  at  auction  ? 
Who  can  weave  this  golden  mesh  in  another  tree — give  the 
same  voices  to  another  stream — the  same  sunset  to  other  hills  ? 
This  fairy  property,  invisible  as  it  is,  is  acquired  slowly.  Habit, 
long  association,  the  connection  with  many  precious  thoughts,  (the 
more  precious  the  farther  between,)  make  it  precious.  To  sell 
such  a  spot  for  its  wood  and  brick,  is  to  value  Tom  Moore  for 
what  he  will  weigh — Daniel  Webster  for  his  superficies.  Then 
there  will  be  a  time  (I  trust  it  is  far  off)  when  the  property  will 
treble  even  in  saleable  value.  The  bee  and  the  poet  must  be 
killed  before  their  honey  is  tasted.  For  how  much  more  would 
Abbotsford  sell  now  than  in  the  lifetime  of  Scott  ?  For  what 
could  you  buy  Ferney — Burns's  cottage — Shakspeare's  house  at 
Stratford  ?  I  have  not  the  honor  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
Mrs.  Sigourney,  and  can  not  judge  with  what  philosophy  she 
may  sustain  this  reverse.  But,  bear  it  well  or  ill,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  it  falls  heavily  ;  and  it  is  one  of  those  instances,  I  think, 
where  public  feeling  should  be  called  on  to  interpose.  But  in 
what  shape  ?  I  have  always  admired  the  generosity  and  readi- 
ness with  which  actors  play  for  the  benefit  of  a  decayed  "  brother 
of  the  sock."  Let  American  authors  contribute  to  make  up  a 
volume,  and  let  the  people  of  Hartford,  who  live  in  the  light  of 


HOMES  OF  GENIUS.  77 


this  bright  spirit,  head  the  subscription  with  ten  thousand  copies. 
You  live  among  literary  people,  dear  Doctor,  and  your  "  smile 
becomes  you  better  than  any  man's  in  all  Phrygia."  You  can 
set  it  afloat  if  you  will.  My  name  is  among  the  W's,  but  I  will 
be 'ready  in  my  small  turn. 

"  Now  God  b'wi'you,  good  Sir  Topas  !"  for  on  this  sheet  there 
is  no  more  room,  and  I  owe  you  but  one.  Correspondence,  like 
thistles,  "  is  not  blown  away  till  it  hath  got  too  high  a  top." 
A  dieu 


LETTER    VIII. 

MY  DEAR  DOCTOR:  Wliat  can  keep  you  in  town  during  this  in- 
sufferable hot  solstice  ?  I  can  not  fancy,  unless  you  shrink  from 
a  warm  welcome  in  the  country.  It  is  too  hot  for  enthusiasm, 
and  I  have  sent  the  cart  to  the  hay-field,  and  crept  under  the 
bridge  in  my  slippers,  as  if  I  had  found  a  day  to  be  idle,  though 
I  promised  myself  to  see  the  harvest  home,  without  missing  sheaf 
or  winrow.  Yet  it  must  be  cooler  here  than  where  you  are,  for  I 
see  accounts  of  drought  on  the  sea-board,  while,  with  us,  every  hot 
noon  has  bred  its  thunder-shower,  and  the  corn  on  the  dry  hill- 
sides is  the  only  crop  not  kept  back  by  the  moisture.  Still,  the 
waters  are  low,  and  the  brook  at  my  feet  has  depleted  to  a  slen- 
der vein,  scarce  stouter  than  the  pulse  that  nutters  under  your 
thumb  in  the  slightest  wrist  in  your  practice.  My  lobster  is  miss- 
ing— probably  gone  to  "  the  springs."  My  swallowlets  too,  who 
have,  "as  it  were,  eat  paper  and  drunk  ink,"  have  flitted  since 
yesterday,  like  illiterate  gipseys,  leaving  no  note  of  their  depar- 
ture. "  Who  shall  tell  Priam  so,  or  Hecuba  ?"  The  old  swallows 
circle  about  as  if  they  expected  them  again.  Heaven  send  they 
are  not  in  some  crammed  pocket  in  that  red  school-house,  unwil- 
ling listeners  to  that  vexed  alphabet,  or,  perhaps,  squeezed  to 
death  in  the  varlet's  perplexity  at  crooked  S. 


A  CHANCE  CALL.  Y9 

I  have  blotted  that  last  sentence  like  a  school-boy,  but,  between 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  it,  I  have  lent  a  neighbor  my  side- 
hill  plough,  besides  answering,  by  the  way,  rather  an  embarrass- 
ing question.  My  catechiser  lives  above  me  on  the  drink,  (his 
name  for  the  liver,)  and  is  one  of  those  small  farmers,  common 
here,  who  live  without  seeing  money  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other.  He  never  buys ;  he  trades.  He  takes  a  bag  of  wheat,  or 
a  fleece,  to  the  village  for  salt  fish  and  molasses,  pays  his  doctor 
in  corn  or  honey,  and  "  changes  work"  with  the  blacksmith,  the 
saddler,  and  the  shoemaker.  He  is  a  shrewd  man  withal,  likes 
to  talk,  and  speaks  Yankee  of  the  most  Breotian  fetch  and  purity. 
Imagine  a  disjointed-looking  Enceladus,  in  a  homespun  sunflower- 
colored  coat,  and  small  yellow  eyes,  expressive  of  nothing  but  the 
merest  curiosity,  looking  down  on  me  by  throwing  himself  over 
the  railing  like  a  beggar's  wallet  of  broken  meats. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Willisy !" 

From  hearing  my  name  first  used  in  the  possessive  case,  probably, 
(Willis's  farm  or  cow,)  he  regularly  throws  me  in  that  last  syllable. 

"  Ah !  good  morning !"  (Looking  up  at  the  interruption,  I 
made  that  unsightly  blot  which  you  have  just  excused.) 

"  You  aint  got  no  side-hill  plough  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  have,  and  I'll  lend  it  to  you  with  pleasure." 

"  Wai !  you're  darn'i  quick,  I  warnt  a  go'n'  to  ask  you  quite 
yet.  Writin'  to  your  folks  at  hum  ?" 

"  No !" 

"  Making  out  a  lease  ?" 

"  No !" 

"How  you  do  spin  it  off!  You  haint  always  work'd  on  a 
farm,  have  ye  ?" 


80  LETTER  VIII. 


It  is  a  peculiarity,  (a  redeeming  peculiarity,  I  think,)  of  the 
Yankees,  that,  though  their  questions  are  rude,  they  are  never 
surprised  if  you  do  not  answer  them.  I  did  not  feel  that  the 
thermometer  warranted  me  in  going  into  the  history  of  my  life 
to  my  overhanging  neighbor,  and  I  busied  myself  in  crossing  my 
t's  and  dotting  my  i's  very  industriously.  He  had  a  maggot  in 
his  brain,  however,  and  must  e'en  be  delivered  of  it.  He  pulled 
off  a  splinter  or  two  from  under  the  bridge  with  his  long  arms, 
and,  during  the  silence,  William  came  to  me  with  a  message, 
which  he  achieved  with  his  English  urider-tone  of  respect. 

"  Had  to  lick  that  boy  some,  to  make  him  so  darn'd  civil 
hadn't  yc  ?" 

"  You  have  a  son  about  his  ;ige,  I  think  ?" 

"  Yes ;  but  I  guess  he  couldn't  be  scared  to  talk  that  way. 
What's  the  critter  'feard  on  ?" 

No  answer. 

"  You  haint  been  a  minister,  have  ye  ?" 

"  "No !" 

"  Wai !  they  talk  a  heap  about  your  place.  /  say^  Mr.  Wil- 
lisy,  you  aint  nothing  particular,  be  ye?" 

You  should  have  seen,  dear  Doctor,  the  look  of  eager  and  puz- 
zled innocence  with  which  this  rather  difficult  question  was  deliver- 
ed. Something  or  other  had  evidently  stimulated  my  good  neigh- 
bor's curiosity,  but  whether  I  had  been  blown  up  in  a  steamboat,  ur 
had  fatted  a  prize  pig,  or  what  was  my  claim  to  the  digito  mon- 
slrari,  it  was  more  than  half  his  errand  to  discover.  I  have  put 
down  our  conversation,  I  believe,  with  the  accuracy  of  a  short- 
hand writer.  Now,  is  not  this  a  delicious  world,  in  which,  out 
of  a  museum,  and  neither  stuffed  nor  muzzled,  you  may  find  such 


LISTENERS  WANTED.  81 


an  Arcadian  ?  What  a  treasure  he  would  be  to  those  ancient 
mariners  of  polite  life,  who  exist  but  to  tell  you  of  their  little 
peculiarities  ! 

I  have  long  thought,  dear  Doctor,  and  this  reminds  me  of  it, 
that  there  were  two  necessities  of  society,  unfitted  with  a  voca- 
tion. (If  you  know  any  middle-aged  gentleman  out  of  employ- 
ment, I  have  no  objection  to  your  reserving  the  suggestion  for  a 
private  chanty,  but  otherwise,  I  would  communicate  it  to  the 
world  as  a  new  light.)  The  first  is  a  luxury  which  no  hotel 
should  be  without,  no  neighborhood,  no  thoroughfare,  no  editor's 
closet.  I  mean  a  professed,  salaried,  stationary,  and  confidential 
listener.  Fancy  the  comfort  of  such  a  thing.  There  should  be  a 
well-dressed,  silent  gentleman,  for  instance,  pacing  habitually  the 
long  corridor  of  the  Astor,  with  a  single  button  on  his  coat,  of  the 
size  of  a  door-handle.  You  enter  in  a  violent  hurry,  or  with  a 
mind  tenanted  to  suit  yourself;  and  some  faineant  babbler,  weary 
of  his  emptiness,  must  needs  take  you  aside,  and  rob  you  of  two 
mortal  hours,  more  or  less,  while  he  tells  you  his  tale  of  nothing. 
If  "  a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  got,"  what  a  value  it  would  add 
to  life  to  be  able  to  transfer  this  leech  of  precious  time,  by  laying 
his  hand  politely  on  the  large  button  of  the  listener !  "  Finish 
your  story  to  this  gentleman !"  quoth  you.  Then,  again,  there 
is  your  unhappy  man  in  hotels,  newly  arrived,  without  an  ac- 
quaintance save  the  crisp  and  abbreviating  bar-keeper,  who  wan- 
ders up  and  down,  silent-sick,  and  more  solitary  in  the  crowd 
about  liim  than  the  hermit  on  the  lone  column  of  the  temple  of 
Jupiter.  What  a  mercy  to  such  a  sufferer  to  be  able  to  step  to 
the  bar,  and  order  a  listener !  Or,  to  send  for  him  with  a  bottle 
of  wine  when  dining  alone,  (most  particularly  alone,)  at  a  table 
9* 


89  LETTER  VIII. 


of  two  hundred  !  Or,  to  ring  for  him  in  number  four  hundred 
and  ninety-three,  of  a  rainy  Sunday,  with  punch  and  cigars !  I 
am  deceived  in  Stetson  of  the  Astor,  if  he  is  not  philosopher 
enough  to  see  the  value  of  this  suggestion.  "  Baths  in  a  house, 
and  a  respectable  listener  if  desired,"  would  be  an  attractive  ad- 
vertisement, let  me  promise  you ! 

The  other  vocation  to  which  I  referred,  would  be  that  of  a  sort  of 
ambulant  dictionary,  to  be  used  mostly  at  evening  parties.  It  should 
be  a  gentleman  not  distinguishable  from  the  common  animated  wall- 
flower, except  by  some  conventional  sign,  as  a  bit  of  blue  riband 
in  his  button-hole.  His  qualifications  should  be  to  know  all  per- 
sons moving  in  the  circle,  and  something  about  them — to  be  up, 
in  short,  to  the  town  gossip — what  Miss  Thing's  expectations  are — 
who  "  my  friend"  is  with  the  dyed  mustache — and  which  of  the 
stout  ladies  on  the  sofa  are  the  forecast  shadows  of  coming  balls, 
or  the  like  desirablenesses.  There  are  a  thousand  invisible  cobwebs 
threaded  through  society,  which  the  stranger  is  apt  to  cross 
a  travers — committing  his  enthusiasm,  for  instance,  to  the  deaf 
ears  of  a  fiancee;  or,  from  ignorance,  losing  opportunities  of 
knowing  the  clever,  the  witty,  and  the  famous — all  of  whom  look, 
at  a  first  glance,  very  much  like  other  people.  The  gentleman 
with  the  blue  riband,  you  see,  would  remedy  all  this.  You  might 
make  for  him  after  you  bow  to  the  lady  of  the  house,  and  in  ten 
minutes  put  yourself  au  courant  of  the  entire  field.  You  might 
apply  to  him  (if  you  had  been  absent  to  Santa  Fe  or  the  Pyra- 
mids) for  the  last  new  shibboleth,  the  town  rage,  the  nam*  of  the 
new  play  or  poem,  the  form  and  color  of  the  freshest  change  in 
the  kaleidoscope  of  society.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  sensible 
people  to  retire,  and  "  sweep  and  garnish"  their  self-respect  in  a 


ADOPTED  BY  A   CUR.  83 

month's  seclusion.  It  is  some  time  before  they  become  advised 
again  of  what  it  is  necessary  to  know  of  the  follies  of  the  hour. 
The  graceful  yet  bitter  wit,  the  unoffending  yet  pointed  rally,  the 
confidence  which  colors  all  defeats  like  successes,  are  delicate 
weapons,  the  dexterity  at  which  depends  much  on  familiarity  with 
the  ground.  What  an  advent  to  the  diffident  and  the  embar- 
rassed would  be  such  a  profession !  How  many  persons  of  wit. 
and  spirit  there  are,  in  society,  blank  for  lack  of  confidence,  who, 
with  such  a  friend  in  the  corner,  would  come  out  like  magic-ink 
to  the  fire  !  "  Ma  hardiesse,"  (says  the  aspiring  rocket,)  "  vient 
de  mon  ardeur  /"  But  the  device  would  lose  its  point  did  it  take 
a  jack-o'-lantern  for  a  star.  Mention  these  little  hints  to  your 
cleverest  female  friend,  dear  Doctor.  It  takes  a  woman  to  intro- 
duce an  innovation. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you,  I  have  been  adopted — by  perhaps  the 
most  abominable  cur  you  will  see  in  your  travels.  I  mention  it 
to  ward  off  the  first  impression — for  a  dog  gives  a  character  to  a 
house ;  and  I  would  not  willingly  have  a  friend  light  on  such  a 
monster  in  my  premises  without  some  preparation.  His  first  ap- 
parition was  upon  a  small  floss  carpet  at  the  foot  of  an  ottoman, 
the  most  luxurious  spot  in  the  house,  of  which  he  had  taken  pos- 
session with  a  quiet  impudence  that  perfectly  succeeded.  Along, 
short-legged  cur,  of  the  color  of  spoiled  mustard,  with  most  base 
tail  and  erect  ears — villanous  in  all  his  marks.  Rather  a  dandy 
gentleman,  from  New  York,  was  calling  on  us  when  he  was  dis- 
covered, and,  presuming  the  dog  to  be  his,  we  forbore  remark  ; 
and,  assured  by  this  chance  indulgence,  he  stretched  himself  to 
sleep.  The  indignant  outcry  with  which  the  gentleman  disclaimed 
all  knowledge  of  him,  disturbed  his  slumber ;  and,  not  to  leave 


84  LETTER  VIII. 


us  longer  in  doubt,  he  walked  confidently  across  the  room,  and 
seated  himself  between  my  feet,  with  a  canine  freedom  I  had 
never  seen  exhibited,  except  upon  most  familiar  acquaintance.  I 
saw  clearly  that  our  visitor  looked  upon  my  disclaimer  as  a 
"  fetch."  It  would  have  been  perilling  my  credit  for  veracity  to 
deny  the  dog.  So  no  more  was  said  about  him,  and  since  that 
hour  he  has  kept  himself  cool  in  my  shadow.  I  have  tried  to 
make  him  over  to  the  kitchen,  but  he  will  neither  feed  nor  stay 
with  them.  I  can  neither  outrun  him  on  horseback,  nor  lose  him 
by  crossing  ferries.  Very  much  to  the  discredit  of  my  taste,  I 
am  now  never  seen  without  this  abominable  follower — and  there 
is  no  help  for  it,  unless  I  kill  him,  which,  since  he  loves  me, 
would  be  worse  than  shooting  the  albatross ;  besides,  I  have  at 
least  a  drachm  (three  scruples)  of  Pythagoreanism  in  me,  and 
"  fear  to  kill  woodcock,  lest  I  dispossess  the  soul  of  my  grandam." 
I  shall  look  to  the  papers  to  see  what  friend  I  have  lost  in  Italy, 
or  the  East.  I  can  think  of  some  who  might  come  to  me  thus. 

Adieu,  dear  Doctor.  Send  me  a  good  name  for  my  cur — for 
since  he  will  have  me,  why  I  must  needs  be  his,  and  he  shall  be 
graced  with  an  appellation.  I  think  his  style  of  politics  might 
be  worth  something  in  love.  If  I  were  the  lady,  it  would  make 
a  fair  beginning.  But  I  will  waste  no  more  ink  upon  you. 


LETTER    IX. 

Mr  DEAR  DOCTOR  :  As  they  say  an  oyster  should  be  pleased  with 
his  apotheosis  in  a  certain  sauce,  I  was  entertained  with  the  clev- 
erness of  your  letter,  though  you  made  minced  meat  of  my  trout- 
fishing.  Under  correction,  however,  I  still  cover  the  barb  of  my 
"  fly,"  and  so  I  must  do,  till  I  can  hook  my  trout  if  he  but  graze 
the  bait  with  his  whisker.  You  are  an  alumnus  of  the  gentle  sci- 
ence, in  which  I  am  but  a  neophyte,  and  your  fine  rules  presup- 
pose the  dexterity  of  a  practiced  angler.  Now  a  trout  (I  have 
observed,  in  my  small  way)  will  jump  once  at  your  naked  fly; 
but  if  he  escape,  he  will  have  no  more  on 't,  unless  there  is  a 
cross  of  the  dace  in  him.  As  it  is  a  fish  that  follows  his  nose, 
however,  the  smell  of  the  worm  will  bring  him  to  the  lure  again  ; 
and  if  your  awkwardness  give  him  time,  he  will  stick  to  it  till  he 
has  cleaned  the  hook.  Probation  est. 

You  may  say  this  is  unscientific,  but,  if  I  am  to  breakfast  from 
the  contents  of  my  creel,  I  must  be  left  with  my  worm  and  my 
ignorance. 

Besides — hang  rules !  No  two  streams  are  alike — no  two  men 
(who  are  not  fools)  fish  alike.  Walton  and  Wilson  would  find 
some  new  "  wrinkle,"  if  they  were  to  try  these  wild  waters  ;  and, 


86  LETTER  IX. 


to  generalize  the  matter,  I  have,  out  of  mathematics,  a  distrust  of 
rules,  descriptions,  manuals,  etc.,  amounting  to  a  'phobia.  Expe- 
rience was  always  new  to  me.  I  do  not  seem  to  myself  ever  to 
have  seen  the  Rome  I  once  read  of.  The  Venice  I  know  is  not 
the  Venice  of  story  nor  of  travellers'  books.  There  are  two  Lon- 
dons  in  my  mind — one  where  I  saw  whole  shelves  of  my  library 
walking  about  in  coats  and  petticoats,  and  another  where  there 
was  nothing  visible  through  the  fog  but  fat  men  with  tankards  of 
porter — one  memory  of  it  all  glittering  with  lighted  rooms,  bright 
and  kind  faces,  men  all  manly,  and  women  all  womanly  ;  and  an- 
other memory  (got  from  books)  where  every  man  was  surly,  and 
dressed  in  a  buff  waistcoat,  and  every  woman  a  giantess,  in  riding- 
hat  and  boots. 

It  is  delightful  to  think  how  new  everything  is,  spite  of  descrip- 
tion. Never  believe,  dear  Doctor,  that  there  is  an  old  world. 
There  is  no  such  place,  on  my  honor  !  You  will  find  England, 
France,  Italy,  and  the  East,  after  all  you  have  read  and  heard,  as 
altogether  new  as  if  they  were  created  by  your  eye,  and  were 
never  sung,  painted,  nor  be-written — you  will  indeed.  Why — 
to  be  sure — what  were  the  world  else  ?  A  pawnbroker's  closet, 
where  every  traveller  had  left  his  clothes  for  you  to  wear  after 
him  !  No  !  no  !  Thanks  to  Providence,  all  things  are  new  !  Pen 
and  ink  cannot  take  the  gloss  off  your  eyes,  nor  can  any  man  look 
through  them  as  you  do.  I  do  not  believe  the  simplest  mat- 
ter— sunshine  or  verdure — has  exactly  the  same  look  to  any 
two  people  in  the  world.  How  much  less  a  human  face — a 
landscape — a  broad  kingdom  ?  Travellers  are  very  pleasant  peo- 
ple. They  tell  you  what  picture  was  produced  in  their  brain 
by  the  things  they  saw ;  but,  if  they  forestalled  novelty  by  that, 


ESTIMATE  OF  CRITICISM. 


87 


1  »K)t.ld  as  soon  read  them  as  beseech  a  thief  to  steal  my  din- 
ner. 3cy  it  looks  to  one  pair  of  eyes  !  would  be  a  good  reminder 
pencilled  ou  the  margin  of  many  a  volume. 

I  have  run  my  ploughshare,  in  this  furrow,  upon  a  root  of 
philosophy,  ^viiich  has  cured  heart-aches  for  me,  ere  now.  I 
struck  upon  it  al'niost  accidentally,  while  administering  consola- 
tion, years  since,  to  a  sensitive  friend,  whose  muse  had  been  con- 
signed, alive  and  kicking,  to  the  tomb,  by  a  blundering  undertaker 
of  criticism.  I  read  the  -review,  and  wrote  on  it,  with  a  pencil,  "  So 
thinks  one  man  in  fifteen  pillions;"  and,  to  my  surprise,  up 
swore  my  dejected  friend,  M«s  Master  Barnardine,  that  he  would 
"  consent  to  die  that  day,  for  no  man's  persuasion."  Since  that, 
I  have  made  a  practice  of  counting  the  enemy  /  and,  trust  me,  dear 
Doctor,  it  is  sometimes  worth  while  not  to  run  away  without  this 
little  preliminary.  A  friend,  for  instance,  with  a  most  boding 
solemnity,  takes  you  aside,  and  pulls  from  his  pocket  a  newspa- 
per containing  a  paragraph  that  is  aimed  at  your  book,  your 
morals,  perhaps  your  looks  and  manners.  You  catch  the  alarm 
from  your  friend's  face,  and  fancy  it  is  the  voice  of  public  opinion, 
and  your  fate  is  fixed.  Your  book  is  detestable,  your  character  is 
gone.  Your  manners  and  features  are  the  object  of  universal  dis- 
approbation. Staj !  count  the  enemy  !  Was  it  decided  by  a  conven- 
tion ?  No !  By  a  caucus  ?  No !  By  a  vote  on  the  deck  of  a 
steamboat  ?  No  !  By  a  group  at  the  corner  of  the  street,  by  a 
club,  by  a  dinner-party  ?  No  !  By  whom  then  ?  One  small 
gentleman,  sitting  in  a  dingy  corner  of  a  printing-ofiice,  who  puts 
his  quill  through  your  reputation  as  the  entomologist  slides  a  pin 
through  a  beetle — in  the  way  of  his  vocation.  No  particular 
malice  to  you.  He  wanted  a  specimen  of  the  genu*  poet,  and 


88  LETTER  IX 


you  were  the  first  caught.  If  there  is  no  head  to  the  pin,  (as 
there  often  is  none,)  the  best  way  is  to  do  as  the  beetle  does — 
pretend  to  be  killed  till  he  forgets  you,  and  then  slip  off  without 
a  buzz. 

The  only  part  of  calumny  that  I  ever  found  troublesome,  was 
my  friends'  insisting  on  my  being  unhappy  about  it.  T  dare  say 
you  have  read  the  story  of  the  German  criminal,  whose  last  re- 
quest, that  his  head  might  be  struck  off  while  he  stood  engaged 
in  conversation,  was  humanely  granted  by  the  provost.  The 
executioner  was  an  adroit  headsman,  and,  watching  his  opportu- 
nity, he  crept  behind  his  victim  while  he  was  observing  the  flight 
of  a  bird,  and  sliced  off  his  bulb  without  even  discomposing  his 
gaze.  It  was  suggested  to  the  sufferer,  presently,  that  he  was 
decapitated,  but  he  thought  not.  Upon  which,  one  of  his  friends 
stepped  up,  and,  begging  he  would  take  the  pains  to  stir  himself  a 
little,  his  head  fell  to  the  ground.  If  the  story  be  not  true,  the 
moral  is.  In  the  many  times  I  have  been  put  to  death  by  criti- 
cism, I  have  never  felt  incommoded,  till  some  kind  friend  insisted 
upon  it ;  and  now  that  I  can  stand  on  a  potato-hill,  in  a  circle  of 
twice  the  diameter  of  a  rifle-shot,  and  warn  off  all  trespassers,  I 
intend  to  defy  sympathy,  and  carry  my  top  as  long  as  it  will  stay 
on — behead  me  as  often  as  you  like,  beyond  my  periphery. 

Still  though 

44  The  eagle  suffers  little  birds  to  sing, 
And  is  not  careful  what  they  mean  thereby," 

it  is  very  pleasant,  now  and  then,  to  pounce  upon  a  bigger  bird, 
streaming  in  the  same  chorus.  Nothing  impairs  the  dignity  of 
&n  author's  reputation  like  a  newspaper  wrangle,  yet  one  bold 


NEWNESS  OF  IMPRESSIONS.  89 


literary  vulture,  struck  down  promptly  and  successfully,  serves  as 
good  a  purpose  as  the  hawk  nailed  to  the  barn-door.  But  I  do 
not  live  in  the  country  to  be  pestered  with  resentments.  I  do 
not  well  know  how  the  thoughts  of  them  came  under  the  bridge. 
I'll  have  a  fence  that  shall  keep  out  such  stray  cattle,  or  there 
are  no  posts  and  rails  in  philosophy. 

There  is  a  little  mental  phenomenon1,  dear  Doctor,  which  has 
happened  to  me  of  late  so  frequently,  that  I  must  ask  you  if  you 
are  subject  to  it,  in  the  hope  that  your  singular  talent  for  analysis 
will  give  me  the  " pourquoi."  I  mean  a  sudden  novelty  in  the 
impression  of  very  familiar  objects,  enjoyments,  etc.  For  exam- 
ple, did  it  ever  strike  you  all  at  once  that  a  tree  was  a  very 
magnificent  production  ?  After  looking  at  lakes  and  rivers  for 
thirty  years,  (more  or  less,)  have  you  ever,  some  fine  morning, 
caught  sight  of  a  very  familiar  stream,  and  found  yourself 
impressed  with  its  new  and  singular  beauty  ?  I  do  not  know  that 
the  miracle  extends  to  human  faces,  at  least  in  the  same  degree. 
I  am  sure  that  my  old  coat  is  not  rejuvenescent.  But  it  is  true 
that,  from  possessing  the  nil  admirari  becoming  to  a  "  picked  man 
of  countries,"  (acquired  with  some  pains,  I  may  say,)  I  now 
catch  myself  smiling  with  pleasure  to  think  the  river  will  not  all 
run  by ;  that  there  will  be  another  sunset  to-morrow  ;  that  my 
grain  will  ripen  and  nod  when  it  is  ripe,  and  such  like  every-day 
marvels.  Have  we  scales  that  drop  off  our  eyes  at  a  "  certain 
age  ?"  Do  our  senses  renew  as  well  as  our  bodies,  only  more 
capriciously?  Have  we  a  chrysalis  state,  here  below,  like  that 
parvenu  gentleman,  the  butterfly  ?  Still  more  interesting  query 
— does  this  delicious  novelty  attach,  later  in  life,  or  ever,  to 
objects  of  affection — compensating  for  the  ravages  in  the  form, 


90  LETTER  IX. 


the  dullness  of  the  senses,  loss  of  grace,  temper,  and  all  outward 
loveliness  ?  I  should  like  to  get  you  over  a  flagon  of  Tokay  on 
that  subject. 

There  is  a  curious  fact,  I  have  learned  for  the  first  time  in  this 
wild  country,  and  it  may  be  new  to  you,  that,  as  the  forest  is 
cleared,  new  springs  rise  to  the  surface  of  the  ground,  as  if  at 
the  touch  of  the  sunshine.  The  settler  knows  that  water,  as  well 
as  herbage,  will  start  to  the  light,  and,  as  his  axe  lets  it  in  upon 
the  black  bosom  of  the  wilderness,  his  cattle  find  both  pasture 
and  drink,  where,  before,  there  had  never  been  either  well-head 
or  verdure.  You  have  yourself  been,  in  your  day,  dear  Doctor, 
"  a  warped  slip  of  wilderness,"  and  will  see  at  once  that  there 
lies,  in  this  ordinance  of  Nature,  a  beautiful  analogy  to  certain 
moral  changes,  that  come  in  upon  the  heels  of  more  cultivated 
and  thoughtful  manhood.  Of  the  springs  that  start  up  in  the 
footsteps  of  thought  and  culture,  the  sources  are  like  those  of 
forest  springs,  unsuspected  till  they  flow.  There  is  no  divining- 
rod,  whose  dip  shall  tell  us  at  twenty,  what  we  shall  most  relish 
at  thirty.  We  do  not  think  that  with  experience  we  shall  have 
grown  simple ;  that  things  we  slight  and  overlook  will  have  be- 
come marvels ;  that  our  advancement  in  worth  will  owe  more  to 
the  cutting  away  of  overgrowth  in  tastes  than  to  their  acquisition 
or  nurture. 

I  should  have  thought  this  change  in  myself  scarce  worth  so 
much  blotting  of  good  paper,  but  for  its  bearing  on  a  question 
that  has  hitherto  given  me  no  little  anxiety.  The  rivers  flow  on 
to  the  sea,  increasing  in  strength  and  glory  to  the  last ;  but  we 
have  our  pride  and  fullness  in  youth,  and  dwindle  and  fall  away 
toward  the  grave.  How  I  was  to  grow  dull  to  the  ambitions 


GROWING  GRACEFULLY  OLD  91 


and  excitements  which  constituted  my  whole  existence — be  con- 
tent to  lag  and  fall  behind,  and  forego  emulation  in  all  possible 
pursuits — in  short,  how  I  was  to  grow  old  contentedly  and  grace- 
fully, has  been  to  me  somewhat  a  painful  puzzle.  With  what 
should  I  be  pleased  ?  How  should  I  fill  the  vacant  halls  from 
which  had  fled  merriment  and  fancy,  and  hope,  and  desire  ? 

You  can  scarce  understand,  dear  Doctor,  with  what  pleasure  I 
find  this  new  spring  in  my  path — the  content  with  which  I  admit 
the  conviction,  that,  without  effort  or  self-denial,  the  mind  may 
slake  its  thirst,  and  the  heart  be  satisfied  with  but  the  waste  of 
what  lies  so  near  us.  I  have  all  my  life  seen  men  grow  old,  tran- 
quilly and  content,  but  I  did  not  think  it  possible  that  /  should. 
I  took  pleasure  only  in  that  which  required  young  blood  to  fol- 
low, and  I  felt  that,  to  look  backward  for  enjoyment,  would  be  at 
best  but  a  difficult  resignation. 

Now,  let  it  be  no  prejudice  to  the  sincerity  of  my  philosophy, 
if,  as  a  corollary,  I  beg  you  to  take  a  farm  on  the  Susquehannah, 
and  let  us  grow  old  in  company.  I  should  think  Fate  kinder  than 
she  passes  for,  if  I  could  draw  you,  and  one  or  two  others  whom 
we  know  and  "  love  with  knowledge,"  to  cluster  about  this — cer- 
tainly one  of  the  loveliest  spots  in  nature,  and,  while  the  river 
glides  by  unchangingly,  shape  ourselves  to  our  changes  with  a 
helping  sympathy.  Think  of  it,  dear  Doctor  !  Meantime,  I  em- 
ploy myself  in  my  rides,  selecting  situations  on  the  river  banks 
which  I  think  would  be  to  yours  and  our  friends'  liking ;  and  in 
the  autumn,  when  it  is  time  to  transplant,  I  intend  to  suggest  to 
the  owners  where  teers  might  be  wanted  in  case  they  ever  sold, 
so  that  you  will  not  lose  even  a  season  in  your  shrubbery,  though 
you  delay  your  decision.  Why  should  w  not  renew  Arcady  ? 
God  bless  vou. 


LETTER  X. 

You  may  congratulate  me  on  the  safe  getting  in  of  my  harvest, 
dear  Doctor ;  for  I  have  escaped,  as  you  may  say,  in  a  parenthe- 
sis. Two  of  the  most  destructive  hail -storms  remembered  in  this 
part  of  the  country  have  prostrated  the  crops  of  my  neighbors, 
above  and  below — leaving  not  a  blade  of  corn,  nor  an  unbroken 
window ;  yet  there  goes  my  last  load  of  grain  into  the  barn,  well- 
ripened,  and  cut  standing  and  fair. 

"  Some  bright  little  cherub,  that  sits  up  aloft, 
Keeps  watch  for  the  soul  of  poor  Peter.'' 

I  confess  I  should  have  fretted  at  the  loss  of  my  firstlings, 
more  than  for  a  much  greater  disaster  in  another  shape.  I  have 
expended  curiosity,  watching,  and  fresh  interest  upon  my  uplands, 
besides  plaster  and  my  own  labor ;  and  the  getting  back  five 
hundred  bushels  for  five  or  ten,  has  been,  to  me,  through  all  its 
beautiful  changes  from  April  till  now,  a  wonder  to  be  enjoyed 
like  a  play.  To  have  lost  the  denouement  by  a  hail-storm,  would 
be  like  a  play  with  the  fifth  act  omitted,  or  a  novel  with  the  last 
leaf  torn  out.  Now,  if  no  stray  spark  set  fire  to  my  barn,  I  can 
pick  you  out  the  whitest  of  a  thousand  sheaves,  thrash  them  with 


GOOD  PHRASES.  93 


the  first  frost,  and  send  you  a  barrel  of  Glenmary  flour,  which 
shall  be,  not  only  very  excellent  bread,  but  should  have  also  a 
flavor  of  wonder,  admiration — all  the  feelings,  in  short,  with 
which  I  have  watched  it,  from  seed-time  to  harvest.  Yet  there 
is  many  a  dull  dog  will  eat  of  it,  and  remark  no  taste  of  me! 
And  so  there  are  men  who  will  read  a  friend's  book  as  if  it  were 
a  stranger's — but  we  are  not  of  those.  If  we  love  the  man, 
whether  we  eat  a  potato  of  his  raising,  or  read  a  verse  of  his  in- 
diting, there  is  in  it  a  sweetness  which  has  descended  from  his 
heart — by  quill  Or  hoe-handle.  I  scorn  impartiality.  If  it  be  a 
virtue,  Death  and  Posterity  may  monopolize  it  for  me. 

I  was  interrupted  a  moment  since  by  a  neighbor,  who,  though 
innocent  of  reading  and  writing,  has  a  coinage  of  phraseology 
which  would  have  told  in  authorship.  A  stray  mare  had  broken 
into  his  peas,  and  he  came  to  me  to  write  an  advertisement  for 
the  court-house  door.  After  requesting  the  owner  "  to  pay 
charges  and  take  her  away,"  in  good  round  characters,  I  recom- 
mended to  my  friend,  who  was  a  good  deal  vexed  at  the  trespass, 
to  take  a  day's  work  out  of  her. 

"  Why,  I  haint  no  job  on  the  mounting,"  said  he,  folding  up 
the  paper  very  carefully.  "  It's  a  side-hill  critter  !  Two  off  legs 
so  lame,  she  can't  stand  even." 

It  was  certainly  a  new  idea,  that  a  horse  with  two  spavins  on  a 
side,  might  be  used  with  advantage  on  a  hill  farm.  While  I  was 
jotting  it  down  for  your  benefit,  my  neighbor  had  emerged  from 
under  the  bridge,  and  was  climbing  the  railing  over  my  head. 

"  What  will  you  do  if  he  won't  pay  damages  ?"  I  cried  out. 

"Put  the  types  on  to  him!"  he  answered ;  and,  jumping  into 
the  road,  strided  away  to  post  up  his  advertisement. 


94  LETTER  X. 

I  presume,  that  "  to  put  the  types  on  to"  a  man,  is  to  send  the 
constable  to  him  with  a  printed  warrant ;  but  it  is  a  good  phrase. 

The  hot  weather  of  the  last  week  has  nearly  dried  up  the 
brook,  and,  forgetting  to  water  my  young  trees  in  the  hurry  of 
harvesting,  a  few  of  them  have  hung  out  the  quarantine  yellow 
at  the  top,  and,  I  fear,  will  scarce  stand  it  till  autumn.  Not  to 
have  all  my  hopes  in  one  venture,  and  that  a  frail  one,  I  have  set 
about  converting  a  magnificent  piece  of  wild  jungle  into  an  aca- 
demical grove — an  occupation  that  makes  one  feel  more  like  a 
viceroy  than  a  farmer.  Let  me  interest  you  in  this  metempsy- 
chosis ;  for,  if  we  are  to  grow  old  together,  as  I  proposed  to  you 
in  my  last,  this  grove  will  lend  its  shade  to  many  a  slippered 
noontide,  and  echo,  we  will  hope,  the  philosophy  of  an  old  age, 
wise  and  cheerful.  Aptly  for  my  design,  the  shape  of  the  grove 
is  that  of  the  Greek  H — the  river  very  nearly  encircling  it ;  and 
here,  if  I  live,  I  will  pass  the  Omega  of  my  life  ;  and,  if  you  will 
come  to  the  christening,  dear  Doctor,  so  shall  the  grove  be 
named,  in  solemn  ceremony — The  Omega. 

How  this  nobly-wooded  and  water-clasped  little  peninsula  has 
been  suffered  to  run  to  waste,  I  know  not.  It  contains  some 
half-score-  acres  of  rich  interval ;  and  to  the  neglect  of  previous 
occupants  of  the  farm,  I  probably  owe  its  gigantic  trees,  as  well 
as  its  weedy  undergrowth,  and  tangled  vines.  Time  out  of  mind 
(five  years,  in  this  country)  it  has  been  a  harbor  for  woodcocks, 
wood-ducks,  minks,  wild  bees,  humming-birds,  and  cranes — (two 
of  the  latter  still  keeping  possession) — and  its  labyrinth  of  tall 
weeds,  interlaced  with  the  low  branches  of  the  trees,  was  seldom 
penetrated,  except  once  or  twice  a  year  by  the  sportsman,  and  as 
often  by  the  Ovvaga  in  its  freshet.  Scarce  suspecting  the  size  of 


GROVE-PLANTING.  95 


the  trees  within,  whose  trunks  were  entirely  concealed,  I  have 
looked  upon  its  towering  mass  of  verdure  but  as  a  superb  eme- 
rald wall,  shutting  the  meadows  in  on  the  east — and,  though 
within  a  lance-shot  of  my  cottage,  have  neglected  it,  like  my  pre- 
decessors, for  more  manageable  ground. 

I  have  enjoyed  very  much  the  planting  of  young  wood,  and 
the  anticipation  of  its  shade  and  splendor  in  Heaven's  slow,  but 
good  time.  It  was  a  pleasure  of  Hope ;  and,  to  men  of  leisure 
and  sylvan  taste  in  England,  it  has  been — literature  bears  wit- 
ness— a  pursuit  full  of  dignity  and  happiness.  But  the  redemp- 
tion of  a  venerable  grove  from  the  wilderness,  is  an  enjoyment  of 
another  measure.  It  is  a  kind  of  playing  of  King  Lear  back- 
ward— discovering  the  old  monarch  in  his  abandonment,  and 
sweeping  off  his  unnatural  offspring,  to  bring  back  the  sunshine 
to  his  old  age,  and  give  him  room,  with  his  knights,  in  his  own 
domain.  You  know  how  trees  that  grow  wild  near  water,  in  this 
country,  put  out  foliage  upon  the  trunk  as  well  as  the  branches, 
covering  it,  like  ivy,  to  the  roots.  It  is  a  beautiful  caprice  of 
Nature ;  but  the  grandeur  of  the  dark  and  massive  stem  is  en- 
tirely lost — and  I  have  been  as  much  surprised  at  the  giant 
bodies  we  have  developed,  stripping  off  this  unfitting  drapery,  as 
Richard  at  the  thews  and  sinews  of  the  uncowled  friar  of  Cop- 
manhurst. 

You  can  not  fancy,  if  you  have  never  exercised  this  grave  au- 
thority, how  many  difficulties  of  judgment  arise,  and  how  often 
a  jury  is  wanted  to  share  the  responsibility  of  the  irretrievable 
axe.  I  am  slow  to  condemn ;  and  the  death-blow  to  a  living 
tree,  however  necessary,  makes  my  blood  start,  and  my  judgment 
half  repent.  There  are,  to-day,  several  under  reprieve — one  of 


9ft  LETTER  X. 

~-* 

them  a  beautiful  linden,  which  I  can  see  from  my  seat  under  the 
bridge,  nodding  just  now  to  the  wind,  as  careless  of  its  doom 
as  if  it  were  sure  its  bright  foliage  would  flaunt  out  the  summer. 
In  itself  it  is  well  worth  the  sparing  and  cherishing,  for  it  is 
full  of  life  and  youth — and,  could  I  transplant  it  to  another  spot, 
it  would  be  invaluable.  But,  though  full  grown  and  spreading, 
it  stands  among  giants,  whose  branches  meet  above  it  at  twice  its 
height ;  and,  while  it  contributes  nothing  to  the  shade,  its  smaller 
trunk  looks  a  Lilliputian  in  Brobdignag,  out  of  keeping  and  pro- 
portion. So  I  think  it  must  come  down — and,  with  it,  a  dozen 
in  the  same  category — condemned,  like  many  a  wight  who 
was  well  enough  in  his  place,  for  being  found  in  too  good  com- 
pany. 

There  is  a  superstition  about  the  linden,  by  the  way,  to  which 
the  peculiarity  in  its  foliage  may  easily  have  given  rise.  You 
may  have  remarked,  of  course,  that,  from  the  centre  of  the  leaf, 
starts  a  slender  stem,  which  bears  the  linden-flower.  Our 
Saviour  is  said,  by  those  who  believe  in  the  superstition,  to  have 
been  crucified  upon  this  tree,  which  has  ever  since  borne  the 
flowering  type  of  the  nails  driven  into  it  through  his  palms. 

Another,  whose  doom  is  suspended,  is  a  ragged  sycamore, 
whose  decayed  branches  are  festooned  to  the  highest  top  by  a 
wild  grape-vine,  of  the  most  superb  fruitfulness  and  luxuriance. 
No  wife  ever  pleaded  for  a  condemned  husband  with  more  elo- 
quence than  these  delicate  tendrils  to  me,  for  the  rude  tree  with 
whose  destiny  they  are  united.  I  wish  you  were  here,  dear  Doc- 
tor, to  say,  spare  it,  or  cut  it  down.  In  itself,  like  the  linden,  it 
is  a  splendid  creature ;  but,  alas  !  it  spoils  a  long  avenue  of  stately 
trees  opening  toward  my  cottage  porch,  and  I  fear  policy  must 


FOREST  SCULPTURE.  97 


outweigh  pity.  I  shall  let  it  stand  over  Sunday,  and  fortify  my- 
self with  an  opinion. 

Did  you  ever  try  your  hand,  dear  Doctor,  at  this  forest-sculp- 
ture ?  It  sounds  easy  enough  to  trim  out  a  wood,  and  so  it  is  if 
the  object  be  merely  to  produce  butternuts,  or  shade  grazing 
cattle.  But  to  thin,  and  trim,  and  cut  down,  judiciously,  chang- 
ing a  "  wild  and  warped  slip  of  wilderness"  into  a  chaste  and 
studious  grove,  is  not  done  without  much  study  of  the  spot, 
let  alone  a  taste  for  the  sylvan.  There  are  all  the  many  effects  of 
the  day's  light  to  be  observed — how  morning  throws  her  shadows, 
and  what  protection  there  is  from  noon,  and  where  is  flung  open 
an  aisle  to  let  in  the  welcome  radiance  of  sunset.  There  is  a  view 
of  water  to  be  let  through,  perhaps,  at  the  expense  of  trees  oth- 
erwise ornamental,  or  an  object  to  hide  by  shrubbery  which  is  in 
the  way  of  an  avenue.  I  have  lived  here  as  long  as  this  year's 
grasshoppers,  and  am  constantly  finding  out  something  which 
should  have  a  bearing  on  the  disposition  of  grounds  or  the  sculpture 
(permit  me  the  word)  of  my  wood  and  forest.  I  am  sorry  to  finish 
"  the  Omega"  without  your  counsel  and  taste  ;  but  there  is  a 
wood  on  the  hill  which  I  will  keep,  like  a  cold  pie,  till  you  come 
to  us,  and  we  will  shoulder  our  axes  and  carve  it  into  likelihood 
together. 

And  now  here  comes  my  Yankee  axe  (not  curtal)  which  I  sent 
to  be  ground  when  I  sat  down  to  scrawl  you  this  epistle.  As 
you  owe  the  letter  purely  to  its  dullness,  (and  mine,)  I  must  away 
to  a  half-felled  tree,  which  I  deserted  in  its  extremity.  If  there 
were  truth  in  Ovid,  what  a  butcher  I  were !  Yet  there  is  a 
groan  when  a  tree  falls,  which  sometimes  seems  to  me  more  than 

VOL.  i.  5 


08  LETTER  X. 


the  sundering  cf  splinters.      Adieu,  dear  Doctor,  and  believe 
that 

"  Whate'er  the  ocean  pales  or  sky  inclips 
Is  thine," 

if  I  can  give  it  you  by  wishing. 


LETTER    XI. 

THE  box  of  Rhenish  is  no  substitute  for  yourself,  dear  Doctor, 
but  it  was  most  welcome — partly,  perhaps,  for  the  qualities  it 
has  in  common  with  the  gentleman  who  should  have  come  in  the 
place  of  it.  The  one  bottle  that  has  fulfilled  its  destiny,  was 
worthy  to  have  been  sunned  on  the  Rhine  and  drank  on  the  Sus- 
quehannah,  and  I  will  never  believe  that  anything  can  come  from 
you  that  will  not  improve  upon  acquaintance.  So  I  shall  treasure 
the  remainder  for  bright  hours.  I  should  have  thought  it  supe- 
rior, even  to  the  Tokay  I  tasted  at  Vienna,  if  other  experiments 
had  not  apprised  me  that  country  life  sharpens  the  universal 
relish.  I  think  that  even  the  delicacy  of  the  palate  is  affected  by 
the  confused  sensations,  the  turmoil,  the  vexations  of  life  in  town. 
You  will  say  you  have  your  quiet  chambers,  where  you  are  as 
little  disturbed  by  the  people  around  you  as  I  by  my  grazing 
herds.  But,  by  your  leave,  dear  Doctor,  the  fountains  of  thought 
(upon  which  the  senses  are  not  a  little  dependent)  will  not  clear 
and  settle  over-night  like  a  well.  No — nor  in  a  day,  nor  in  two. 
You  must  live  in  the  country  to  possess  your  bodily  sensations,  as 
well  as  your  mind,  in  tranquil  control.  If,  is  only  when  you  have 
forgotten  streets  and  rumors  and  greetings — forgotten  the  whip 


100  LETTER  XI. 


of  punctuality,  and  the  hours  of  forced  pleasures — only  when 
you  have  cleansed  your  ears  of  the  din  of  trades,  the  shuffle  of 
feet,  the  racket  of  wheels,  and  coarse  voices — only  when  your 
own  voice,  accustomed  to  contend  against  discords,  falls,  through 
the  fragrant  air  of  the  country,  into  its  nattfral  modulations,  in 
harmony  with  the  low  key  upon  which  runs  all  the  music  of  Na- 
ture— only  when  that  part  of  the  world  which  partook  not  of  the 
fall  of  Adam,  has  had  time  to  affect  you  with  its  tranquillity — 
only  then,  that  the  dregs  of  life  sink  out  of  sight,  and,  while  the 
soul  sees  through  its  depths,  like  the  sun  through  untroubled 
water,  the  senses  lose  their  fever  and  false  energy,  and  play  their 
part,  and  no  more,  in  the  day's  expenditure  of  time  and  pulsa- 
tion. 

"  Still  harping  on  my  daughter,"  you  will  say ;  and  I  will 
allow  that  I  can  scarce  write  a  letter  to  you  without  shaping  it  to 
the  end  of  attracting  you  to  the  Susquehannah.  At  least,  watch 
when  you  begin  to  grow  old,  and  transplant  yourself  in  time  to 
take  root,  and  then  we  may  do  as  the  trees  do — defy  the  weather 
till  we  are  separated.  The  oak,  itself,  if  it  has  grown  up  with  its 
kindred  thick  about  it,  will  break  if  left  standing  alone  ;  and  you 
and  I,  dear  Doctor,  have  known  the  luxury  of  friends  too  well  to 
bear  the  loneliness  of  an  unsympathizing  old  age.  Friends  are 
not  pebbles,  lying  in  every  path,  but  pearls  gathered  with  pain, 
and  rare  as  they  are  precious.  We  spend  our  youth  and  man- 
hood in  the  search  and  proof  of  them,  and,  when  Death  has 
taken  his  toll,  we  have  too  few  to  scatter — none  to  throw  away. 
I,  for  one,  will  be  a  miser  of  mine.  I  feel  the  avarice  of  friend- 
ship growing  on  me  with  every  year — tightening  my  hold  and 
extending  my  grasp.  Who,  at  sixty,  is  rich  in  friends  ?  The 


OLD  MAN'S  UTOPIA.  101 


richest  are  those  who  have  drawn  this  wealth  of  angels  around 
them,  and  spent  care  and  thought  on  the  treasuring.  Come,  my 
dear  Doctor  !  I  have  chosen  a  spot  on  one  of  the  loveliest  of  our 
bright  rivers.  Here  is  all  that  goes  to  make  an  Arcadia,  except 
the  friendly  dwellers  in  its  shade.  I  will  choose  your  hillside, 
and  plant  your  grove,  that  the  trees,  at  least,  shall  lose  no  time 
by  your  delay.  Set  a  limit  to  your  ambition,  achieve  it,  and 
come  away.  It  is  terrible  to  grow  old  amid  the  jostle  and  disre- 
spectful hurry  of  a  crowd.  The  Academy  of  the  philosophers 
was  out  of  Athens.  You  can  not  fancy  Socrates  run  against,  in 
the  market-place.  Respect,  which  grows  wild  in  the  fields, 
requires  watching  and  management  in  cities.  Let  us  have  an  old 
man's  Arcady — where  we  can  slide  our  "  slippered  shoon" 
through  groves  of  our  own  consecrating,  and  talk  of  the  world  as 
without — ourselves  and  gay  philosophy  within.  I  have  strings 
pulling  upon  one  or  two  in  other  lands,  who,  like  ourselves,  are  not 
men  to  let  Content  walk  unrecognized  in  their  path.  Slowly,  but, 
I  think,  surely,  they  are  drawing  thitherward ;  and  I  have  chosen 
places  for  their  hearthstones,  too,  and  shall  watch,  as  I  do  for 
you,  that  the  woodman's  axe  cuts  down  no  tree  that  would  be 
regretted.  If  the  cords  draw  well,  and  Death  take  but  his  tithe, 
my  shady  "  Omega"  will  soon  learn  voices  to  which  its  echo  will 
for  long  years  be  familiar,  and  the  Owaga  and  Susquehannah 
will  join  waters  within  sight  of  an  old  man's  Utopia. 

"  My  sentiments  better  expressed"  have  come  in  the  poet's 
corner  of  the  Albion  to-day — a  paper,  by  the  way,  remarkable 
for  its  good  selection  of  poetry.  You  will  allow  that  these  two 
verses,  which  are  the  closing  ones  of  a  piece  called  "  The  men 
of  old,"  are  above  the  common  run  of  newspaper  fugitives : — 


102  LETTER  XI. 


"  A  man's  best  things  are  nearest  him, 

Lie  close  about  his  feet ; 
It  is  the  distant  and  the  dim 

That  we  are  sick  to  greet : 
For  flowers  that  grow  our  hands  beneath 

We  struggle  and  aspire, 
Our  hearts  must  die  except  we  breathe 

The  air  of  fresh  desire. 

But,  brothers,  who  up  reason's  hill 

Advance  with  hopeful  cheer, 
Oh,  loiter  not !  those  heights  are  chill, 

As  chill  as  they  are  clear, 
And  still  restrain  your  haughty  gaze — 

The  loftier  that  ye  go, 
Remembering  distance  leaves  a  haze 

On  all  that  lies  below." 

The  man  who  wrote  that,  is  hereby  presented  with  the  freedom 
of  the  Omega. 

The  first  of  September,  and  a  frost !  The  farmers  from  the 
hills  are  mourning  over  their  buckwheat,  but  the  river-mist  saves 
all  which  lay  low  enough  for  its  white  wreath  to  cover ;  and 
mine,  though  sown  on  the  hillside,  is  at  mist-mark,  and  so  esca- 
ped. Nature  seems  to  intend  that  I  shall  take  kindly  to  farming, 
and  has  spared  my  first  crop  even  the  usual  calamities.  I  have 
lost  but  an  acre  of  corn,  I  think,  and  that  by  the  crows,  who  are 
privileged  marauders,  welcome  at  least  to  build  in  the  Omega, 
and  take  their  tithe  without  rent-day  or  molestation.  I  like  their 
noise,  though  discordant.  It  is  the  minor  in  the  anthem  of  Nature 
—making  the  gay  sound  of  the  blackbird,  and  the  merry  chirp  of 
the  robin  and  oriole,  more  gay  and  cheerier,  Then  there  is  a 


SOUNDS  OF  NATURE  AND  CITIES.  103 


sentiment  about  the  raven  family,  and  for  Shakspeare's  lines  and 
his  dear  sake,  I  love  them. 

"  Some  say  the  ravens  foster  forlorn  children 
The  while  their  own  birds  famish  in  their  nests." 

The  very  name  of  a  good  deed  shall  protect  them.  Who  shall 
say  that  poetry  is  a  vain  art,  or  that  poets  are  irresponsible  for 
the  moral  of  their  verse  ?  For  Burns's  sake,  not  ten  days  since,  I 
beat  off  my  dog  from  the  nest  of  a  field-mouse,  and  forbade  the 
mowers  to  cut  the  grass  over  her.  She  has  had  a  poet  for  her 
friend,  and  her  thatched  roof  is  sacred.  I  should  not  like  to 
hang  about  the  neck  of  my  soul  all  the  evil  that,  by  the  last 
day,  shall  have  had  its  seed  in  Byron's  poem  of  the  Corsair.  It 
is  truer  of  poetry  than  of  most  other  matters,  that 

"  More  water  glideth  by  the  mill 
Than  wots  the  miller  of." 

But  I  am  slipping  into  a  sermon. 

Speaking  of  music,  some  one  said  here,  the  other  day,  that  the 
mingled  hum  of  the  sounds  of  Nature,  and  the  distant  murmur  of 
a  city,  produce,  invariably,  the  note  F  in  music.  The  voices  of 
all  tune,  the  blacksmith's  anvil  and  the  wandering  organ,  the 
church  bells  and  the  dustman's,  the  choir  and  the  cart-wheel,  the 
widow's  cry  and  the  bride's  laugh,  the  prisoner's  clanking  chain 
and  the  school-boy's  noise  at  play — at  the  height  of  the  church 
steeple  are  one!  It  is  all  "  F"  two  hundred  feet  in  air !  The 
swallow  can  outsoar  both  our  joys  and  miseries,  and  the  lark — 
what  are  they  in  his  chamber  of  the  sun  ?  If  you  have  any 
unhappiness  at  the  moment  of  receiving  this  letter,  dear  Doctor, 


104  LETTER  XI. 


try  this  bit  of  philosophy.  It's  all  F  where  the  bird  flies  !  You 
have  no  wings  to  get  there,  you  say,  but  your  mind  has  more 
than  the  six  of  the  cherubim,  and  in  your  mind  lies  the  grief  you 
would  be  rid  of.  As  Csesar  says, 

"  By  all  the  gods  the  Romans  bow  before, 
I  here  discard  my  sickness." 

I'll  be  above  F,  and  let  troubles  hang  below.  What  a  twopenny 
matter  it  makes  of  all  our  cares  and  vexations !  I'll  find  a  boy  to 
climb  to  the  top  of  a  tall  pine  I  have,  and  tie  me  up  a  white  flag, 
which  shall  be  above  high-sorrow  mark  henceforth.  I  will  neither 
be  elated  or  grieved  without  looking  at  it.  It  floats  at  "  F," 
where  it  is  all  one  f  Why,  it  will  be  a  castle  in  the  air,  indeed — 
impregnable  to  unrest.  Why  not,  dear  Doctor  ?  Why  should 
we  not  set  up  a  reminder,  that  our  sorrows  are  only  so  deep — 
that  the  lees  are  but  at  the  bottom,  and  there  is  good  wine  at 
the  top — that  there  is  an  atmosphere  but  a  little  above  us  where 
our  sorrows  melt  into  our  joys  ?  No  man  need  be  unhappy  who 
can  see  the  grasshopper  of  a  church-vane. 

It  is  surprising  how  mere  a  matter  of  animal  spirits  is  the 
generation  of  many  of  our  bluest  devils  ;  and  it  is  more  surprising 
that  we  have  neither  the  memory  to  recall  the  trifles  that  have 
put  them  to  the  flight,  nor  the  resolution  to  combat  their  approach. 
A  man  will  be  ready  to  hang  himself  in  the  morning  for  an  an- 
noyance that  he  has  the  best  reason  to  know  would  scarce  give 
him  a  thought  at  night.  Even  a  dinner  is  a  doughty  devil-queller 
How  true  is  the  apology  of  Menenius,  when  Coriolanus  had  re- 
pelled his  friend ! 


MODIFIED  BENEVOLENCE.  105 


«  He  had  not  dined. 

The  veins  unfilled,  our  blood  is  cold,  and  then 
We  pout  upon  the  morning :  are  unapt 
To  give  or  to  forgive  ;  but  when  we  have  stuffed 
These  pipes,  and  these  conveyances  of  our  blood, 
With  wine  and  feeding,  we  have  suppler  souls 
Than  in  our  priest-like  fasts.     Therefore  I'll  watch  him 
Till  he  be  dieted  to  my  request." 

I  have  recovered  my  spirits,  ere  now,  by  a  friend  asking  me 
what  was  he  matter.  One  seems  to  want  but  the  suggestion, 
the  presen  >e  of  mind,  the  expressed  wish,  to  be  happy  any  day. 
My  white  flag  shall  serve  me  that  good  end.  "  Tut,  man !"  it 
shall  say,  "  your  grief  is  not  grief  where  I  am !  Send  your 
imagination  this  high  to  be  whitewashed  ?" 

Our  weather,  to-day,  is  a  leaf  out  of  October's  book,  soft,  yet 
invigorating.  The  harvest  moon  seems  to  have  forgotten  her 
mantle  last  night,  for  there  lies  on  the  landscape  a  haze,  that,  to 
be  so  delicate,  should  be  born  of  moonlight.  The  boys  report 
plenty  of  deer  tracks  in  the  woods  close  by  us,  and  the  neighbors 
tell  me  they  browse  in  troops  on  my  buckwheat  by  the  light  of 
the  moon  Let  them !  I  have  neither  trap  nor  gun  on  my 
premises,  and  Shakspeare  shall  be  their  sentinel  too.  At  least, 
no  Robin  or  Diggory  shall  shoot  them  without  complaint  or 
damage ;  though  if  you  were  here,  dear  Doctor,  I  should,  most 
likely,  borrow  a  gun,  and  lie  down  with  you  in  the  buckwheat,  to 
see  you  bring  down  the  fattest.  And  so  do  our  partialities 
modify  our  benevolence.  I  fear  I  should  compound  for  a  visit 
by  the  slaughter  of  the  whole  herd.  Perhaps  you  will  come  to 

shoot  deer,  and  with  that  pleasant  hope  I  will  close  my  letter. 
5* 


LETTER   XII. 

I  HAVE  nearly  had  my  breath  taken  away  this  ittuu^  <iear 
Doctor,  by  a  grave  assurance,  from  a  railroad  commissioner,  that 
five  years  hence  I  should  "  devour  the  way"  between  this  and 
New  York  in  seven  hours.  Close  on  the  heels  of  this  gentleman 
came  an  engineer  of  the  canal,  who  promised  me,  as  trippingly, 
that,  in  three  years,  I  should  run  in  a  packet-boat  from  my  cottage 
to  tide-water.  This  was  intended,  in  both  cases,  I  presume,  to 
be  very  pleasant  intelligence.  With  a  little  time,  I  dare  say,  I 
shall  come  to  think  it  so.  But  I  assure  you,  at  present',  that,  of  all 
dwellers  upon  the  canal  route,  myself,  and  the  toads  disentombed 
by  the  blasting  of  the  rocks,  are,  perhaps,  the  most  unpleasantly 
surprised — they,  poor  hermits,  fancying  themselves  safe  from  the 
troubles  of  existence  till  doomsday,  and  I  as  sure  that  my  cot- 
tage was  at  a  safe  remove  from  the  turmoil  of  city  propinquity. 

If  I  am  compelled  to  choose  a  hearthstone  again,  (God  knows 
whether  Broadway  will  not  reach  bodily  to  this,)  I  will  employ 
an  engineer  to  find  me  a  spot,  if  indeed  there  be  one,  which  has 
nothing  behind  it  or  about  it,  or  in  its  range,  which  could,  by  any 
chance,  make  it  a  thoroughfare.  There  is  a  charm  to  me  in  an 
iw-navigable  river,  which  brought  me  to  the  Susquehamiah.  I 


SECLUSION,  IN  A  PROSPECT.  107 


like  the  city  sometimes,  and  I  bless  Heaven  for  steamboats ;  but 
I  love  haunts  where  I  neither  see  a  steamboat  nor  expect  the 
city.  What  is  the  Hudson  but  a  great  highroad  ?  You  may 
have  your  cottage,  it  is  true,  and  live  by  the  water-side  in  the 
shade,  and  be  a  hundred  miles,  more  or  less,  from  the  city.  But 
every  half-hour  comes  twanging  through  your  trees  the  clang  of 
an  untuneable  bell,  informing  you,  whether  you  will  or  no,  that 
seven  hundred  cits  are  seething  past  your  solitude.  You  must 
be  an  abstracted  student  indeed,  if  you  do  not  look  after  the  noisy 
intruder  till  she  is  lost  to  the  eye.  Then  follow  conjectures 
what  news  may  be  on  board,  what  friends  may  be  passing  un- 
known, what  celebrities,  or  oddities,  or  wonders  of  beauty,  may 
be  mingling  in  the  throng  upon  her  decks ;  and,  by  the  time  you 
remember  again  that  you  are  in  the  country,  there  sounds  another 
bell,  and  another  discordant  whiz,  and  so  your  mind  is  plucked 
away  to  city  thoughts  and  associations,  while  your  body  sits  alone 
and  discontented  amid  the  trees. 

Now,  for  one,  I  like  not  this  divorce.     If  I  am  to  be  happy, 
my  imagination  must  keep  my  body  company,  and  both  must  be 

• 

in  the  country,  or  both  in  town.  With  all  honor  to  Milton,  who 
avers — 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  hell  of  heaven,  a  heaven  of  hell," 

my  mind  to  make  a  heaven,  requires  the  society  of  its  material 
half.  Though  my  pores  take  in  a  palpable  pleasure  from  the 
soft  air  of  morning,  my  imagination  feeds  twice  as  bountifully, 
foraging  amid  the  sunshine  and  verdure  with  my  two  proper 
eyes  ;  and,  in  turn,  my  fancy  feeds  more  steadily  when  I  breathe 


108  LETTER  XII. 


and  feel  what  she  is  abroad  in.  Ask  the  traveller  which 
were  his  /nhappiest  hours  under  foreign  skies.  If  he  is  of  my 
mind,  he  will  say,  they  were  those  in  which  his  thoughts  (by  let- 
ters or  chance  news)  were  driven  irresistibly  home,  leaving  his 
eyes  blind  and  his  ears  deaf,  in  the  desert  or  the  strange  city. 
There  are  persons,  I  know,  who  make  a  pleasure  of  revery,  and, 
walking  on  the  pavement,  will  be  dreaming  of  fields,  and  in  the 
fields  think  only  of  the  distractions  of  town.  But,  with  me, 
absent  thoughts,  unless  to  be  rid  of  disagreeable  circumstances, 
are  a  disease.  When  in  health,  I  am  all  together,  what  there  is 
of  me — soul  and  body,  head  and  heart — and  a  steamboat  that 
should  daily  cut  the  line  of  my  horizon,  with  human  interest 
enough  on  board  to  take  my  thoughts  with  her  when  she  disap- 
peared, would,  to  my  thinking,  be  a  daily  calamity.  I  thank 
God  that  the  deep  shades  of  the  Omega  lie  between  my  cottage 
and  the  track  of  both  canal  and  railroad.  I  live  in  the  lap  of  a 
semicircle  of  hills,  and  the  diameter,  I  am  pleased  to  know,  is 
shorter  than  the  curve.  There  is  a  green  and  wholesome  half 
mile,  thickly  wooded,  and  mine  own  to  keep  so,  between  my 
threshold  and  the  surveyor's  line,  and,  like  the  laird's  Jock,  1 
shall  be  lt  aye  sticking  in  a  tree." 

Do  not  think,  dear  Doctor,  that  I  am  insensible  to  the  grandeur 
of  the  great  project  to  connect  Lake  Erie  with  the  Hudson  by 
railroad,  or  that  I  do  not  feel  a  becoming  interest  in  my  country's 
prosperity.  I  would  fain  have  a  farm  where  my  cattle  and  I  can 
ruminate  without  fear  of  falling  asleep  on  a  rail-track,  or  slipping 
into  a  canal ;  but  there  is  an  imaginative  and  a  bright  side  to 
these  improvements,  which  I  look  on  as  often  as  on  the  other. 
What  should  prevent  steam-posting,  for  example — not  in  confined 


TRAVELLING  COTTAGE.  109 


and  cramped  carriages,  suited  to  the  strength  of  a  pair  of  horses, 
but  in  airy  and  commodious  apartments,  furnished  like  a  bach- 
elor's lodgings,  with  bed,  kitchen,  and  servants  ?  What  should 
prevent  the  transfer  of  such  a  structure  from  railroad  to  canal- 
boat,  as  occasion  required  ?  In  five  years,  probably,  there  will 
pass  through  this  village  a  railroad  and  a  canal,  by  which, 
together,  we  shall  have  an  unbroken  chain  of  canal  and  railroad 
communication  with  most  of  the  principal  sea-board  cities  of  this 
country,  and  with  half  the  towns  and  objects  of  curiosity  in  the 
west  and  north. 

I  build  a  tenement  on  wheels,  considerably  longer  than  the 
accommodations  of  single  gentlemen  at  hotels,  with  a  small 
kitchen,  and  such  a  cook  as  pleases  the  genius  of  republics.  The 
vehicle  shall  be  furnished,  we  will  say,  with  tangent  movable 
rails,  or  some  other  convenience  for  wheeling  off  the  track  when- 
ever there  is  occasion  to  stop  or  loiter.  As  I  said  before,  it  should 
be  arranged  also  for  transfer  to  a  boat.  In  either  case  there  shall 
be  post-horses,  as  upon  the  English  roads,  ready  to  be  put  to,  at 
a  moment's  warning,  and  capable,  upon  the  railroad  at  least,  of 
a  sufficient  rate  of  speed.  What  could  be  more  delightful  or 
more  easy  than  to  furnish  this  ambulatory  cottage  with  light 
furniture  from  your  stationary  home,  cram  it  with  books,  and 
such  little  refinements  as  you  most  miss  abroad,  and,  purchas- 
ing provisions  by  the  way,  travel  under  your  own  roof  from  one 
end  of  the  country  to  the  other  ?  Imagine  me  sending  you  word, 
some  fine  morning,  from  Jersey  City,  to  come  over  and  breakfast 
with  me  at  my  cottage,  just  arrived  by  railroad  from  the  country? 
Or,  going  to  the  Springs  with  a  house  ready  furnished  ?  Or, 
inviting  you  to  accept  of  my  hospitality  during  a  trip  to  Baltimore, 


110  LETTER  XII. 


or  Cincinnati,  or  Montreal  ?  The  English  have  anticipated  this 
luxury  in  their  expensive  private  yachts,  with  which  they  traverse 
the  Levant,  and  drink  wine  from  their  own  cellars  at  Joppa  and 
Trebizond ;  but  what  is  that  to  travelling  the  same  distance  on 
land,  without  storms  or  sea-sickness,  with  the  choice  of  compan- 
ions every  hour,  and  at  a  hundredth  part  of  the  cost  ?  The 
snail  has  been  before  us  in  the  invention. 

I  presume,  dear  Doctor,  that  even  you  would  be  obliged  to  fish 
around  considerably  to  find  Owego  on  the  map  ;  yet  the  people, 
here,  expect  in  a  year  or  two  to  sit  at  their  windows,  and  see  all 
the  fashion  and  curiosity,  as  well  as  the  dignity  and  business  of 
the  world  go  by.  The  little  village,  to  which  prosper'^ 

"  Is  as  the  osprey  to  the  fish,  \vho  takes  it 
By  sovereignty  of  nature," 

lies  at  the  joint  of  a  great  cross  of  northern  and  western  travel. 
The  Erie  railroad  will  intersect  here  the  canal  which  follows  the 
Susquehannah  to  the  Chenango,  and  you  may  as  well  come  to 
Glenmary  if  you  wish  to  see  your  friend,  the  General,  on  his 
annual  trip  to  the  Springs.  Think  what  a  superb  route  it  will 
be  for  southern  travellers  !  Instead  of  being  filtered  through  all 
the  sea-board  cities,  at  great  cost  of  money  and  temper,  they  will 
strike  the  Susquehannah  at  Columbia,  and  follow  its  delicious 
windings  past  Wyoming  to  Owego,  where,  turning  west,  they 
may  steam  up  the  small  lakes  to  Niagara,  or,  keeping  on  the 
Chenango,  track  that  exquisite  river  by  canal  to  the  Mohawk,  and 
so  on  to  the  Springs — all  the  way  by  the  most  lovely  river-courses 
in  the  world.  Pure  air,  new  scenery,  and  a  near  and  complete 
escape  from  the  cities  in  the  hot  months,  will  be  (the  O-egoists 


LOVE  OF  SUNSHINE.  HI 


think)  inducements  enough  to  bring  the  southern  cities,  rank  and 
file,  in  annual  review  before  us.  The  canal-boat,  of  course,  will 
be  "  the  genteel  thing"  among  the  arrivals  in  this  metropolis. 
Pleasure  north  and  south,  business  east  and  west.  We  shall  take 
our  fashions  from  New  Orleans,  and  I  do  not  despair  of  seeing  a 
cafe  on  the  Susquehannah,  with  a  French  dame  de  comptoir, 
marble  tables,  and  the  Picayune  newspaper.  If  my  project  of 
travelling  cottages  should  succeed,  I  shall  offer  the  skirt  of  my 
Omega  to  such  of  my  New  Orleans  friends  as  would  like  to  pas- 
ture a  cow  during  the  summer,  and  when  they  and  the  orioles 
migrate  in  the  autumn,  why,  we  will  up  cottage  and  be  off  to  the 
south  too — freeze  who  likes  in  Tioga. 

I  wish  my  young  trees  liked  this  air  of  Italy  as  well  as  I.  This 
ten  days'  sunshine  has  pinched  their  thirsty  tops,  and  it  looks  like 
mid-autumn  from  my  seat  under  the  bridge.  No  water,  save  a 
tricklet  in  the  early  morning.  But  suck  weather  for  picknick- 
ing !  The  buckwheat  is  sun-dried,  and  will  yield  but  half  a  crop. 
The  deer  come  down  to  the  spring-heads,  and  the  snakes  creep 
to  the  river.  Jenny  toils  at  the  deep-down  well-bucket,  and  the 
minister  prays  for  rain.  I  love  the  sun,  and  pray  for  no  advent 
but  yours. 

You  have  never  seen,  I  dare  be  certain,  a  volume  of  poems 
called  "  Mundi  et  Cordis  Carmina,"  by  Thomas  Wade.  It  is 
one  of  those  volumes  killed,  like  my  trees,  in  the  general  drought 
of  poesy,  but  there  is  stuff  in  it  worth  the  fair  type  on  which  it  is 
printed,  though  Mr.  Wade  takes  small  pains  to  shape  his  verse  to 
the  common  comprehension.  I  mention  him  now,  because,  in 
looking  over  his  volume,  I  find  he  has  been  before  me  in  particular- 
izing the  plaoe  where  a  letter  is  written,  and  goes  beyond  me,  by 


112  LETTER  XII. 


specifying  also  the  place  where  it  should  be  read.  "  The  Pen- 
cilled Letter"  and  its  "Answer,"  are  among  his  most  intelligible 
poems,  and  I  will  give  you  their  concluding  lines,  as  containing  a 
new  idea  in  amatory  correspondence  : 

*  Dearest,  love  me  still ; 
I  know  new  objects  must  thy  spirit  fill ; 
But  yet  I  pray  thee,  do  not  love  me  less  ; 
This  write  I  where  I  dress.    Bless  thee !  for  ever  bless  P 

The  reply  has  a  very  pretty  conclusion,  aside  from  the  final 
oddity : 

"  Others  may  inherit 

My  heart's  wild  perfume  ;  but  the  flower  is  thine. 
This  read  where  thou  didst  write.    All  blessings  round  thee  throng." 

It  is  in  your  quality  as  bachelor  that  you  get  the  loan  of  this 
idea,  for  in  love,  "  a  trick  not  worth  an  egg,"  so  it  be  new,  is 
worth  the  knowing. 

Here's  a  precious  coil !  The  red  heifer  has  chewed  up  a  lace 
cape,  and  the  breachy  ox  has  run  over  the  "  bleach  and  laven- 
der" of  a  seven  days'  wear  and  washing.  It  must  be  laid  to  the 
drought,  unless  a  taste  for  dry  lace  as  well  as  wet  can  be  proved 
on  the  peccant  heifer.  The  ox  would  to  the  drink — small  blame 
to  him.  But  lace  is  expensive  fodder,  and  the  heifer  must  be 
"  hobbled" — so  swears  the  washerwoman. 

"  Her  injury 
's  the  jailer  to  her  pity." 

I  have  only  the  "  turn  overs"  left,  dear  Doctor,  and  I  will  cover 
them  with  one  of  Mr.  Wade's  sonnets,  which  will  serve  you. 


EPITHALAMIUM.  H3 


sliould  you  have  occasion,  for  an  epithalamium.    It  is  called  "the 
Bride,"  and  should  be  read  fasting  by  a  bachelor : 

"  Let  the  trim  tapers  burn  exceeding  brightly ! 
And  the  -white  bed  be  decked  as  for  a  goddess, 
Who  must  be  pillowed,  like  high  vesper,  nightly 
On  couch  ethereal !     Be  the  curtains  fleecy, 
Like  vesper's  fairest,  when  calm  nights  are  breezy- 
Transparent,  parting — showing  what  they  hide, 
Or  strive  to'veil — by  mystery  deified  ! 
The  floor,  gold  carpet,  that  her  zone  and  boddice 
May  lie  in  honor  where  they  gently  fall, 
Slow  loosened  from  her  form  symmetrical — 
Like  mist  from  sunlight.    Burn,  sweet  odors,  burn . 
For  incense  at  the  altar  of  her  pleasure  ! 
Let  music  breathe  with  a  voluptuous  measure, 
And  witchcrafts  trance  her  wheresoe'er  she  turn.* 


LETTER    XIII. 

THIS  is  not  a  very  prompt  answer  tD  your  last,  my  dear  Doctor, 
for  I  intended  to  have  taken  my  brains  to  you  bodily,  and  replied 
to  all  your  "  whether-or-noes"  over  a  broiled  oyster  at  *****. 
Perhaps  I  may  bring  this  in  my  pocket.  A  brace  of  ramblers, 
brothers  of  my  own,  detained  me  for  a  while,  but  are  flitting  to- 
day ;  and  Bartlett  has  been  here  a  week,  to  whom,  more  particu- 
larly, I  wish  to  do  the  honors  of  the  scenery.  We  have  climbed 
every  hill-top  that  has  the  happiness  of  looking  down  on  the 
Owaga  and  Susquehannah,  and  he  agrees  with  me  that  a  more 
lovely  and  habitable  valley  has  never  sat  to  him  for  its  picture. 
Fortunately,  on  the  day  of  his  arrival,  the  dust  of  a  six  weeks' 
drought  was  washed  from  its  face,  and,  barring  the  wilt  that 
precedes  autumn,  the  hillsides  were  in  holyday  green  and  looked 
their  fairest.  He  has  enriched  his  portfolio  with  four  or  five  de- 
licious sketches,  and  if  there  were  gratitude  or  sense  of  renown  in 
trees  and  hills,  they  would  have  nodded  their  tops  to  the  two  of 
us.  It  is  not  every  valley  or  pine  tree  that  finds  painter  and  his- 
torian, but  these  are  as  insensible  as  beauty  and  greatness  were 
ever  to  the  claims  of  their  trumpeters. 

How  long  since  was  it  that  I  wrote  to  you  of  Bartlett's  visit  to 


VISIT  FROM  AN  ARTIST.  H5 


Constantinople  ?  Not  more  than  four  or  five  weeks,  it  seems  to 
me,  and  yet,  here  he  is,  on  his  return  from  a  professional  trip  to 
Canada,  with  all  its  best  scenery  snug  in  his  portmanteau !  He 
teamed  to  Turkey  and  back,  and  steamed  again  to  America,  and 
will  be  once  more  in  England  in  some  twenty  days — having  visited 
and  sketched  the  two  extremities  of  the  civilized  world.  Why,  I 
might  farm  it  on  the  Susquehannah  and  keep  my  town-house  hi 
Constantinople — (with  money.)  It  seemed  odd  to  me  to  turn  over 
a  drawing-book,  and  find  on  one  leaf  a  freshly-pencilled  sketch  of  a 
mosque,  and  on  the  next  a  view  of  Glenmary — my  turnip-field  in 
the  foreground.  And  then  the  man  himself — pulling  a  Turkish 
para  and  a  Yankee  shinplaster  from  his  pocket  with  the  same 
pinch — shuffling  to  breakfast,  in  my  dbri  on  the  Susquehannah,  hi 
a  pair  of  peaked  slippers  of  Constantinople,  that  smell  as  freshly 
of  the  bazar  as  if  they  were  bought  yesterday — waking  up  with 
1  pekke!  pekJee!  my  good  fellow  !"  when  William  brings  him  his 
boots — and  never  seeing  a  blood-red  maple  (just  turned  with 
the  frost)  without  fancying  it  the  sanguine  flag  of  the  Bosphorus 
or  the  bright  jacket  of  a  Greek !  All  this  unsettles  me  strangely. 
The  phantasmagoria  of  my  days  of  vagabondage  flit  before  my 
eyes  again.  This,  "  by-the-by,  do  you  remember,  in  Smyrna  ?" 
and  "  the  view  you  recollect  from  the  Seraglio  !"  and  such  like 
slip-slop  of  travellers,  heard  within  reach  of  my  corn  and  pump- 
kins, affects  me  like  the  mad  poet's  proposition  : 

"  To  twitch  the  rainbow  from  the  sky, 
And  splice  both  ends  together." 

I  have  amused  my  artist  friend  since  he  has  been  here,  with 


116  LETTER  X11I. 


an  entertainment  not  quite  as  expensive  as  the  Holly  Lodge  fire- 
works, but  quite  as  beautiful — the  burning  of  log-heaps.  Instead 
of  gossiping  over  the  tea-table,  these  long  and  chilly  evenings, 
the  three  or  four  young  men  who  have  been  staying  with  us 
were  very  content  to  tramp  into  the  woods  with  a  bundle  of  straw 
and  a  match-box,  and  they  have  been  initiated  into  the  mysteries 
of  "  picking  and  piling,"  to  the  considerable  improvement  of  the 
glebe  of  Glenmary.  Shelley  says, 

"  Men  scarcely  know  how  beautiful  fire  is  ;w 

and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  there  are  varieties  of  glory  hi  its 
phenomena  which  would  make  it  worthy  even  your  metropolitan 
while  to  come  to  the  West  and  "  burn  fallow."  At  this  season 
of  the  year — after  the  autumn  droughts,  that  is  to  say — the 
whole  country  here  is  covered  with  a  thin  smoke,  stealing  up 
from  the  fires  on  every  hill,  in  the  depths  of  the  woods,  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  river ;  and,  what  with  the  graceful  smoke-wreaths 
by  day,  and  the  blazing  beacons  all  around  the  horizon  by  night, 
it  adds  much  to  the  variety,  and,  I  think,  more  to  the  beauty  of 
our  western  October.  It  edifies  the  traveller  who  has  bought 
wood  by  the  pound  in  Paris,  or  stiffened  for  the  want  of  it  in  the 
disforested  Orient,  to  stand  off,  a  rifle-shot,  from  a  crackling 
wood,  and  toast  himself  by  a  thousand  cords,  burnt  for  the  rid- 
dance. What  experience  I  have  had  of  these  holocausts  on  my 
own  land  has  not  diminished  the  sense  of  waste  and  wealth  with 
which  I  first  watched  them.  Paddy's  dream  of  "  rolling  in  a  bin 
of  gold  guineas,"  could  scarce  have  seemed  more  luxurious. 

Bartlett  and  I,  and  the  rest  of  us,  in  our  small  way,  burnt 
enough,  I  dare  say,  to  have  made  a  comfortable  drawing-room  of 


LOG-BURNING.  H7 


Hyde  Park  in  January,  and  the  effects  of  the  white  light  upon 
the  trees  above  and  around  were  glorious.  But  our  fires  were 
piles  of  logs  and  brush — small  beer,  of  course,  to  the  conflagra- 
tion of  a  forest.  I  have  seen  one  that  was  like  the  Thousand 
Columns  of  Constantinople  ignited  to  a  red  heat,  and  covered  with 
carbuncles  and  tongues  of  flame.  It  was  a  temple  of  fire — the 
floor,  living  coals — the  roof,  a  heavy  drapery  of  crimson — the 
aisles  held  up  by  blazing  and  innumerable  pillars,  sometimes 
swept  by  the  wind  till  they  stood  in  still  and  naked  redness,  while 
the  eye  could  see  far  into  their  depths,  and  again  covered  and 
wreathed  and  laved  in  everchanging  billows  of  flame.  We  want 
an  American  Tempesta  or  "  Savage  Rosa,"  to  "  wreak  "  such  pic- 
tures on  canvass  ;  and  perhaps  the  first  step  to  it  would  be  the 
painting  of  the  foliage  of  an  American  autumn.  These  glorious 
wonders  are  peculiarities  of  our  country  ;  why  should  they  not 
breed  a  peculiar  school  of  effect  and  color  ? 

Among  the  London  news  which  has  seasoned  our  breakfasts 
of  late,  I  hear,  pretty  authentically,  that  Campbell  is  coming  to 
look  up  his  muse  on  the  Susquehannah.  He  is  at  present  writ- 
ing the  life  of  Petrarch,  and  superintending  the  new  edition  of  his 
works,  (to  be  illustrated  in  the  style  of  Rogers's,)  and,  between 
whiles,  projecting  a  new  poem ;  and,  my  letters  say,  is  likely  to 
find  the  way,  little  known  io  poets,  from  the  Temple  of  Fame  to 
the  Temple  of  Mammon.  One  would  think  it  were  scarce  decent 
for  Campbell  to  die  without  seeing  Wyoming.  I  trust  he  will 
not.  What  would  I  not  give  to  get  upon  a  raft  with  him,  and 
float  down  the  Susquehannah  a  hundred  miles,  to  the  scene  of  his 
Gertrude,  watching  his  fine  face  while  the  real  displaced  the 
Ideal  valley  of  his  imagination.  I  think  it  would  trouble  him. 


118  LETTER  XIII. 


Probably  in  the  warmth  of  composition  and  the  familiarity  of 
years,  the  imaginary  scene  has  become  enamelled  and  sunk  into 
his  mind,  and  it  would  remain  the  home  of  his  poem,  after  Wyo- 
ming itself  had  made  a  distinct  impression  on  his  memory.  They 
would  be  two  places — not  one.  He  wrote  it  with  some  valley  of 
his  own  land  in  his  mind's  eye,  and  grey  Scotland  and  sunny  and 
verdant  Pennsylvania  will  scarce  blend.  But  he  will  be  welcome. 
Oh,  how  welcome !  America  would  rise  up  to  Campbell.  He 
has  been  the  bard  of  freedom,  generous  and  chivalric  in  all  his 
strains ;  and,  nation  of  merchants  as  we  are,  I  am  mistaken  if  the 
string  he  has  most  played  is  not  the  master-chord  of  our  national 
character.  The  enthusiasm  of  no  people  on  earth  is  so  easily 
awoke,  and  Campbell  is  the  poet  of  enthusiam.  The  school-boys 
have  him  by  heart,  and  what  lives  upon  their  lips  will  live  and 
be  loved  forever. 

It  would  be  a  fine  thing,  I  have  often  thought,  dear  Doctor,  if 
every  English  author  would  be  at  the  pains  to  reap  his  laurels  in 
this  country.  If  they  could  overcome  their  indignation  at  our 
disgraceful  robbery  of  their  copyrights,  and  come  among  the 
people  who  read  them  for  the  love  they  bear  them — read  them 
as  they  are  not  read  in  England,  without  prejudice  or  favor,  per- 
sonal or  political — it  would  be  more  like  taking  a  peep  at  poster- 
ity than  they  think.  In  what  is  the  judgment  of  posterity  better 
than  that  of  contemporaries  ?  Simply  in  that  the  author  is  seen 
from  a  distance — his  personal  qualities  lost  to  the  eye,  and  his 
literary  stature  seen  in  proper  relief  and  proportion.  We  know 
nothing  of  the  degrading  rivalries  and  difficulties  of  his  first  ef- 
forts, or,  if  we  do,  we  do  not  realize  them,  never  having  known 
him  till  success  sent  his  name  over  the  water.  His  reputation  is 


JUSTICE  TO  AUTHORS.  119 


a  Minerva  to  us — sprung  full-grown  to  our  knowledge.  We 
praise  him,  if  we  like  him,  with  the  spirit  in  which  we  criticise  an 
author  of  an  another  age — with  no  possible  private  bias.  Wit- 
ness the  critiques  upon  Bulwer  in  this  country,  compared  with 
those  of  his  countrymen.  What  review  has  ever  given  him  a 
tithe  of  his  deservings  in  England  ?  Their  cold  acknowledgment 
of  his  merits  reminds  one  of  Enobarbus's  civility  to  Menas : 

"  Sir !  I  have  praised  you 

When  you  have  well  deserved  ten  times  as  much 
As  I  have  said  you  did !" 

I  need  not,  to  you,  dear  Doctor,  enlarge  upon  the  benefits,  politi- 
cal and  social,  to  both  countries,  which  would  follow  the  mutual 
good-will  of  our  authors.  We  shall  never  have  theirs  while  we 
plunder  them  so  barefacedly  as  now,  and  I  trust  in  Heaven  we 
shall,  some  time  or  other,  see  men  in  Congress  who  will  go 
deeper  for  their  opinions  than  the  circular  of  a  pirating  book- 
seller. 

I  wish  you  to  send  me  a  copy  of  Dawes's  poems  when  they  ap- 
pear. I  have  long  thought  he  was  one  of  the  unappreciated ; 
but  I  see  that  his  fine  play  of  Athanasia  is  making  a  stir  among 
the  paragraphers.  Rufus  Dawes  is  a  poet,  if  God  ever  created 
one,  and  he  lives  his  vocation  as  well  as  imagines  it.  I  hope  he 
will  shuffle  off  the  heavenward  end  of  his  mortal  coil  under  the 
cool  shades  of  my  Omega.  He  is  our  Coleridge,  and  his  talk 
should  have  reverent  listeners.  I  have  seldom  been  more  pleased 
at  a  change  in  the  literary  kaleidoscope,  than  at  his  awakening 
popularity,  and  I  pray  you,  blow  what  breath  you  have  into  his 


120  LETTER  XIII. 


new-spread  sail.  Cranch,  the  artist,  who  lived  with  me  in 
Italy,  (a  beautiful  scholar  in  the  art,  whose  hand  is  fast  over- 
taking his  head,)  has,  I  see  by  the  papers,  made  a  capital 
sketch  of  him.  Do  you  know  whether  it  is  to  be  engraved  for 
the  book  ? 

Ossian  represents  the  ghosts  of  his  heroes  lamenting  that  they 
had  not  had  their  fame,  and  it  is  a  pity,  I  think,  that  we  had  not 
some  literary  apostle  to  tell  us,  from  the  temple  of  our  Athens, 
who  are  the  unknown  great.  Certain  it  is,  they  often  live  among 
us,  and  achieve  their  greatness  unrecognized.  How  profoundly 
dull  was  England  to  the  merits  of  Charles  Lamb  till  he  died ! 
Yet  he  was  a  fine  illustration  of  my  remark  just  now.  America 
was  posterity  to  him.  The  writings  of  all  our  young  authors 
were  tinctured  with  imitation  of  his  style,  when,  in  England,  (as  I 
personally  know,)  it  was  difficult  to  light  upon  a  person  who  had 
read  his  Elia.  Truly  "  the  root  of  a  great  name  is  in  the  dead 
body."  There  is  Walter  Savage  Landor,  whose  Imaginary  Con- 
versations contain  more  of  the  virgin  ore  of  thought  than  any 
six  modern  English  writers  together,  and  how  many  persons  in 
any  literary  circle  know  whether  he  is  alive  or  dead — an  author 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  or  Queen  Victoria's  ?  He  is  a  man  of 
fortune,  and  has  bought  Boccacio's  garden  at  Fiesole,  and  there, 
upon  the  classic  Africus,  he  is  tranquilly  achieving  his  renown, 
and  it  will  be  unburied,  and  acknowledged  when  he  is  dead. 
Travellers  will  make  pilgrimages  to  the  spot  where  Boccacio  and 
Landor  have  lived,  and  wonder  that  they  did  not  mark  while  it 
was  done — this  piling  of  Ossa  on  Pelion. 

By  the  way,  Mr.  Landor  has  tied  me  to  the  tail  of  his  immor- 
tality, for  an  offence  most  innocently  committed ;  and  I  trust  his 


SAVAGE  LANDOR.  121 


biographer  will  either  let  me  slip  off  at  "  Lethe's  wharf,"  by  ex- 
purgating the  book  of  me,  or  do  me  justice  in  a  note.  When  I 
was  in  Florence,  I  was  indebted  to  him  for  much  kind  attention 
and  hospitality;  and  I  considered  it  one  of  the  highest  of 
my  good  fortunes  abroad,  to  go  to  Fiesole,  and  dine  in  the  scene 
of  the  Decameron  with  an  author  who  would,  I  thought,  live  as 
long  as  Boccacio.  Mr.  Landor  has  a  choice  collection  of  paint- 
ings, and  at  parting  he  presented  me  with  a  beautiful  picture  by 
Cuyp,  which  I  had  particularly  admired,  and  gave  me  some  of 
my  most  valuable  letters  to  England,  where  I  was  then  going. 
I  mention  it  to  show  the  terms  on  which  we  separated.  While 
with  him  on  my  last  visit,  I  had  expressed  a  wish  that  the  philo- 
sophical conversations  in  his  books  were  separated  from  the  polit- 
ical, and  republished  in  a  cheap  form  in  America;  and  the 
following  morning,  before  daylight,  his  servant  knocked  at  the 
door  of  my  lodgings,  with  a  package  of  eight  or  ten  octavo 
volumes,  and  as  much  manuscript,  accompanied  by  a  note  from 
Mr.  Landor,  committing  the  whole  to  my  discretion.  These 
volumes,  I  should  tell  you,  were  interleaved  and  interlined  very 
elaborately,  and  having  kept  him  company  under  his  olive-trees, 
were  in  rather  a  dilapidated  condition.  How  to  add  such  a  bulk 
of  precious  stuff  to  my  baggage,  I  did  not  know.  I  was  at  the 
moment  of  starting,  and  it  was  very  clear  that  even  if  the  cus- 
tom-house officers  took  no  exception  to  them,  (they  are  outlawed 
through  Italy  for  their  political  doctrines,)  they  would  never  sur- 
vive a  rough  journey  over  the  Apennines  and  Alps.  I  did  the 
best  I  could.  I  sent  them  with  a  note  to  Theodore  Fay,  who 
was  then  in  Florence,  requesting  him  to  forward  them  to  America 
VOL.  i.  G 


122  LETTER  XIII. 


by  ship  from  Leghorn ;  a  commission  which  I  knew  that  kindest 
and  most  honorable  of  men  and  poets  would  execute  with  the 
fidelity  of  an  angel.  So  he  did.  He  handed  them  to  an  Ameri- 
can straw-bonnet  maker,  (who,  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose,  was 
the  malicious  donkey  he  afterward  proved,)  and  through  him 
they  were  shipped  and  received  in  New  York.  I  expected,  at 
the  time  I  left  Florence,  to  make  but  a  short  stay  in  England,  and 
sail  in  the  same  summer  for  America ;  instead  of  which  I  re- 
mained in  England  two  years,  at  the  close  of  which  appeared  a 
new  book  of  Mr.  Lander's,  Pericles  and  Aspasia.  I  took  it  up 
with  delight,  and  read  it  through  to  the  last  chapter,  where,  of  a 
sudden,  the  author  jumps  from  the  academy  of  Plato,  clean  over 
three  thousand  years,  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  false  American, 
who  had  robbed  him  of  invaluable  manuscripts  !  So  there  I  go  to 
posterity,  astride  the  Finis  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia !  I  had  cor- 
responded occasionally  with  Mr.  Landor,  and  in  one  of  my  letters 
had  stated  the  fact,  that  the  manuscripts  had  been  committed  to 
Mr.  Miles  to  forward  to  America.  He  called,  in  consequence,  at 
the  shop  of  this  person,  who  denied  any  knowledge  of  the  books, 
leaving  Mr.  Landor  to  suppose  that  I  had  been  either  most  care- 
less or  most  culpable  in  my  management  of  his  trust.  The  books 
had,  however,  after  a  brief  stay  in  New  York,  followed  me  to 
London ;  and,  Fay  and  Mr.  Landor  happening  there  together, 
the  explanation  was  made,  and  the  books  aod  manuscripts  restored, 
unharmed,  to  the  author.  I  was  not  long  enough  in  London,  af- 
terward, to  know  whether  I  was  forgiven  by  Mr.  Landor ;  but,  as 
his  book  has  not  reached  a  second  edition,  I  am  still  writhing  in 
my  purgatory  of  print. 


ERRCR   UNCORRECTED.  123 


I  have  told  you  this  long  story,  dear  Doctor,  because  I  am 
sometimes  questioned  on  the  subject  by  the  literary  people  with 
whom  you  live,  and  hereafter  I  shall  transfer  them  to  your  but- 
ton for  the  whole  matter.  But  what  a  letter !  Write  me  two 
for  it,  and  revenge  yourself  in  the  postage, 


LETTER  XIV. 

THIS  is  return  month,  dear  Doctor,  and,  if  it  were  only  to  be  in 
fashion,  you  should  have  a  quid  pro  quo  for  your  four  pages. 
October  restores  and  returns;  your  gay  friends  and  invalids 
return  to  the  city ;  the  birds  and  the  planters  return  to  the  south  ' 
the  seed  returns  to  the  granary ;  the  brook  at  my  feet  is  noisj 
again  with  its  returned  waters ;  the  leaves  are  returning  to  the 
Garth ;  and  the  heart,  that  has  been  out-of-doors  while  the  sum- 
mer lasted,  comes  home  from  its  wanderings  by  field  and  stream, 
and  returns  to  feed  on  its  harvest  of  new  thoughts,  past  pleasures, 
and  strengthened  and  confirmed  affections.  At  this  time  of  the 
year,  too,  you  expect  a  return  (not  of  pasteboard)  for  youi 
"  visits ;"  but,  as  you  have  made  me  no  visit,  either  friendly  01 
professional,  I  owe  you  nothing.  And  that  is  the  first  consola- 
tion I  have  found  for  your  shortcomings  (or  no-comings-at-all)  to 
Glenmary. 

Now,  consider  my  arms  a-kimbo,  if  you  please,  while  I  ask  you 
what  you  mean  by  calling  Glenmary  "  backwoods !"  Faith,  I 
wish  it  were  more  backwoods  than  it  is !  Here  be  cards  to  be 
left,  sir,  morning  calls  to  be  made,  body-coat  soirees,  and  cere- 
mony enough  to  keep  one's  most  holyday  manners  well  aired. 


COUNTRY  FASHIONABLENESS.  125 


The  two  miles'  distance  between  me  and  Owego  serves  me  for  no 
exemption,  for  the  village  of  Canewana,  which  is  a  mile  nearer  on 
the  road,  is  equally  within  the  latitude  of  silver  forks;  and  din- 
ners are  given  in  both,  which  want  no  one  of  the  belongings  of 
Belgrave  Square,  save  port- wine  and  powdered  footmen.  I  think 
it  is  in  one  of  Miss  Austin's  novels  that  a  lady  claims  it  to  be  a 
smart  neighborhood  in  which  she  "  dines  with  four-and-twenty 
families-."  If  there  are  not  more  than  half  as  many  in  Owego 
who  give  dinners,  there  are  twice  as  many  who  ask  to  tea  and 
give  ice-cream  and  champaign.  Then  for  the  fashions,  there  is 
as  liberal  a  sprinkling  of  French  bonnets  in  the  Owego  church  as 
in  any  village  congregation  in  England.  And  for  the  shops — 
that  subject  is  worthy  of  a  sentence  by  itself.  When  I  say  there 
is  no  need  to  go  to  New  York  for  hat,  boots,  or  coat,  I  mean  that 
the  Owego  tradesmen  (if  you  are  capable  of  describing  what  you 
want)  are  capable  of  supplying  you  with  the  best  and  most 
modish  of  these  articles.  Call  you  that  "  backwoods?" 

All  this,  I  am  free  to  confess,  clashes  with  the  beau  ideal  of  the 

"  Beatus  ille  qui  procul"  etc. 

I  had  myself  imagined,  and  continued  to  imagine  for  some 
weeks  after  coming  here,)  that,  so  near  the  primeval  wilderness,  I 
might  lay  up  my  best  coat  and  my  ceremony  in  lavender,  and 
live  in  fustian  and  a  plain  way.  I  looked  forward  to  the  delights 
of  a  broad  straw  hat,  large  shoes,  baggy  habiliments,  and  leave  to 
sigh  or  whistle  without  offence ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  it  was  the 
conclusion  of  a  species  of  apprenticeship,  and  the  beginning  of 
my  "  freedom."  To  be  above  no  clean  and  honest  employment 
of  one's  time  ;  to  drive  a  pair  of  horses  or  a  yoke  of  oxen  with 


126  LETTER  XIV. 


equal  alacrity,  and  to  be  commented  on  for  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other ;  to  have  none  but  wholesome  farming  cares,  and  work 
with  nature  and  honest  yeomen,  and  be  quite  clear  of  mortifica- 
tions, envies,  advice,  remonstrance,  coldness,  misapprehensions, 
and  etiquettes  ;  this  is  what  I,  like  most  persons  who  "  forswear 
the  full  tide  of  the  world,"  looked  upon  as  the  blessed  promise 
of  retirement.  But,  alas !  wherever  there  is  a  butcher's  shop 
and  a  post-office,  an  apothecary  and  a  blacksmith,  an  "  Arcade" 
and  a  milliner — wherever  the  conveniences  of  life  are,  in  short — 
there  has  already  arrived  the  Procrustes  of  opinion.  Men's  eyes 
will  look  on  you  and  bring  you  to  judgment,  and  unless  you 
would  live  on  wild  meat  and  corn-bread  in  the  wilderness,  with 
neither  friend  nor  helper,  you  must  give  in  to  a  compromise — yield 
half  at  least  of  your  independence,  and  take  it  back  in  common- 
place comfort.  This  is  very  every-day  wisdom  to  those  who 
know  it ;  but  you  are  as  likely  as  any  man  in  the  world  to  have 
sat  with  your  feet  over  the  fire,  and  fancied  yourself  on  a  wild 
horse  in  the  prairie,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  you  from  the 
warlike  Camanche,  except  capital  wine  in  the  cellar  of  your  wig- 
wam, and  the  last  new  novel  and  play,  which  should  reach  this 
same  wigwam — you  have  not  exactly  determined  how !  Such 
"  pyramises  are  goodly  things,"  but  they  are  built  of  the  smoke 
of  your  cigar. 

This  part  of  the  country  is  not  destitute  of  the  chances  of 
adventure,  however,  and  twice  in  the  year,  at  least,  you  may,  if 
you  choose,  open  a  valve  for  our  spirits.  One  half  the  popula- 
tion of  the  neighborhood  is  engaged  in  what  is  called  lumbering, 
and  until  the  pine  timber  of  the  forest  can  be  counted  like  the 
cedars  of  Labanon,  this  vocation  will  serve  the  uses  of  the  mobs 


LUMBERING.  127 


of  England,  the  revolufions  of  France,  and  the  plots  of  Italy.  I 
may  add,  the  music  and  theatres  of  Austria  and  Prussia,  the 
sensual  indulgence  of  the  Turk,  and  the  intrigue  of  the  Spaniard ; 
for  there  is,  in  every  people  under  the  sun,  a  superflu  of  spirits 
unconsumed  by  common  occupation,  which,  if  not  turned  adroitly 
or  accidentally  to  some  useful  or  harmless  end,  will  expend  its 
reckless  energy  in  trouble  and  mischief. 

The  preparations  for  the  adventures  of  which  I  speak,  though 
laborious,  are  often  conducted  like  a  frolic.  The  felling  of  the 
trees  in  mid-winter,  the  cutting  of  shingles,  and  the  drawing 
out  on  the  snow,  are  employments  preferred  by  the  young  men 
to  the  tamer  but  less  arduous  work  of  the  farm-yard ;  and,  in 
the  temporary  and  uncomfortable  shanties,  deep  in  the  woods, 
subsisting  often  on  nothing  but  pork  and  whiskey,  they  find  metal 
more  attractive  than  village  or  fireside.  The  small  streams 
emptying  into  the  Susquehannah  are  innumerable,  and,  eight  or 
ten  miles  back  from  the  river,  the  arks  are  built,  and  the  materials 
of  the  rafts  collected,  ready  to  launch  with  the  first  thaw.  I  live, 
myself,  as  you  know,  on  one  of  these  tributaries,  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  from  its  junction.  The  Owaga  trips  along  at  the  foot  of  my 
lawn,  as  private  and  untroubled,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year, 
as  Virginia  Water  at  Windsor ;  but,  as  it  swells  in  March,  the 
noise  of  voices  and  hammering,  coming  out  from  the  woods  above, 
warns  us  of  the  approach  of  an  ark ;  and,  at  the  rate  of  eight  or 
ten  miles  an  hour,  the  rude  structure  shoots  by,  floating  high  on 
the  water,  without  its  lading,  (which  it  takes  in  at  the  village 
below,)  and  manned  with  a  singing  and  saucy  crew,  who  dodge 
the  branches  of  the  trees,  and  work  their  steering  paddles  with 
an  adroitness  and  nonchalance  which  sufficiently  shows  the 


LETTER  XIV. 


character  of  the  class.  The  sudden  bends  which  the  river  takes 
in  describing  my  woody  Omega,  put  their  steersmanship  to  the  test ; 
and,  when  the  leaves  are  off  the  trees,  it  is  a  curious  sight  to  see 
the  bulky  monsters,  shining  with  new  boards,  whirling  around 
in 'the  swift  eddies,  and,  when  caught  by  the  current  again, 
gliding  off  among  the  trees,  like  a  singing  and  swearing  phantom 
of  an  unfinished  barn. 

At  the  village  they  take  wheat  and  pork  into  the  arks,  load 
their  rafts  with  plank  and  shingles,  and  wait  for  the  return  of  the 
freshet.  It  is  a  fact  you  may  not  know,  that,  when  a  river  is 
rising,  the  middle  is  the  highest,  and  vice  versa  when  falling — 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  experience  of  the  raftsmen,  who,  if  they 
start  before  the  flow  is  at  its  top,  can  not  keep  their  crafts  from 
the  shore.  A  penthouse,  barely  sufficient  for  a  man  to  stretch 
himself  below,  is  raised  on  the  deck,  with  a  fire-place  of  earth 
and  loose  stone,  and,  with  what  provision  they  can  afford,  and 
plenty  of  whiskey,  they  shove  out  into  the  stream.  Thence- 
forward it  is  vogue  la  galere  !  They  have  nothing  to-  do,  all  day, 
but  abandon  themselves  to  the  current,  sing  and  dance  and  take 
their  turn  at  the  steering  oars ;  and,  when  the  sun  sets,  they  look 
out  for  an  eddy,  and  pull  in  to  the  shore.  The  stopping-places 
are  not  very  numerous,  and  are  well  known  to  all  who  follow  the 
trade ;  and,  as  the  river  swarms  with  rafts,  the  getting  to  land, 
and  making  sure  of  a  fastening,  is  a  scene  always  of  great  com- 
petition, and  often  of  desperate  fighting.  When  all  is  settled  for 
the  night,  however,  and  the  fires  are  lit  on  the  long  range  of  the 
flotilla,  the  raftsmen  get  together  over  their  whiskey  and  prov- 
ender, and  tell  the  thousand  stories  of  their  escapes  and  accidents  ; 
and,  with  the  repetition  of  this,  night  after  night,  the  wlnle 


RAFTSMEN  OF  THE  SLSQUEHANNAH.       129 


rafting  population,  along  the  five  hundred  miles  of  the  Susque- 
hannah,  becomes  partially  acquainted,  and  forms  a  sympathetic 
corps,  whose  excitement  and  esprit  might  be  roused  to  very 
dangerous  uses. 

By  daylight  they  are  cast  off  and  once  more  on  the  current, 
and  in  five  or  seven  days  they  arrive  at  tide-water,  where  the 
crew  is  immediately  discharged,  and  start,  usually  on  foot,  to  fol- 
low the  river  home  again.  There  are  several  places  in  the 
navigation  which  are  dangerous,  such  as  rapids  and  dam-sluices; 
and,  what  with  these,  and  the  scenes  at  the  eddies,  and  their 
pilgrimage  through  a  thinly  settled  and  wild  country  home  again, 
they  see  enough  of  adventure  to  make  them  fireside  heroes,  and 
incapacitate  them,  (while  their  vigor  lasts,  at  least,)  for  all  the  more 
quiet  habits  of  the  farmer.  The  consequence  is  easy  to  be  seen. 
Agriculture  is  but  partially  followed  throughout  the  country, 
and  while  these  cheap  facilities  for  transporting  produce  to  the 
sea-board  exists,  those  who  are  contented  to  stay  at  home,  and 
cultivate  the  rich  river-lands  of  the  country,  are  sure  of  high 
prices  and  a  ready  reward  for  their  labor. 

Moral.  Come  to  the  Susquehannah,  and  settle  on  a  farm. 
You  did  not  know  what  I  was  driving  at,  all  this  while ! 

The  rafismen  who  "  follow  the  Delaware"  (to  use  their  own 
poetical  expression)  are  said  to  be  a  much  wilder  class  than  those 
on  the  Susquehannah.  In  returning  to  Owego,  by  different 
routes,  I  have  often  fallen  in  with  parties  of  both ;  and  certainly 
nothing  could  be  more  entertaining  than  to  listen  to  their  tales. 
In  a  couple  of  years  the  canal  route  on  the  Susquehannah  will 
lay  open  this  rich  vein  of  the  picturesque  and  amusing,  and,  as 
the  tranquil  boat  glides  peacefully  along  the  river  bank,  the 
6* 


130  LETTER  XIV. 


traveller  will  be  surprised  with  the  strange  effect  of  these 
immense  flotillas,  with  their  many  fires  and  wild  people,  lying  in 
the  glassy  bends  of  the  solitary  stream ;  the  smoke  stealing  through 
the  dark  forest,  and  the  confusion  of  a  hundred  excited  voices 
breaking  the  silence.  In  my  trip  down  the  river  in  the  spring,  I 
saw  enough  that  was  novel  in  this  way  to  fill  a  new  portfolio  for 
Bartlett,  and  I  intend  he  shall  raft  it  with  me  to  salt  water  the 
next  time  he  comes  among  us. 

How  delicious  are  these  October  noons !  They  will  soon  chill, 
I  am  afraid,  and  I  shall  be  obliged  to  give  up  my  out-of-doors 
habits ;  but  I  shall  do  it  unwillingly.  I  have  changed  sides  under 
the  bridge,  to  sit  with  my  feet  in  the  sun,  and  I  trust  this  warm 
corner  will  last  me,  till  November  at  least.  The  odor  of  the 
dying  leaves,  and  the  song  of  the  strengthening  brook,  are  still 
sufficient  allurements,  and  even  your  rheumatism  (of  which  the 
Latin  should  be  podagra]  might  safely  keep  me  company  till 
dinner.  Adieu,  dear  Doctor !  write  me  a  long  account  of  Vestris 
and  Matthews,  (how  you  like  them,  I  mean,  for  I  know  very  well 
how  I  like  them  myself,)  and  thank  me  for  turning  over  to  you  a 
new  leaf  of  American  romance.  You  are  welcome  to  write  a 
novel,  and  call  it  "  The  Raftsman  of  the  Susquehannah." 


LETTER    XV. 

W*A  i  desce:id  the  Susquehannah  on  a  raft  ?"  Never, 
dear  Docfrr^  But  I  have  descended  it  in  a  steamboat,  and  that 
may  surprise  you  more.  It  is  an  ^-navigable  river,  it  is  true ; 
and,  it  is  true,  too,  that  there  are  some  twenty  dams  across  it 
between  Owego  and  Wilkesbarre ;  yet,  have  I  steamed  it  from 
Owego  to  Wyoming,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  twelve  hours 
— cm  the  top  of  a  freshet.  The  dams  were  deep  under  the  water, 
and  the  river  was  as  smooth  as  the  Hudson.  And  now  you  will 
wonder  how  a  steamer  came,  by  fair  means,  at  Owego. 

A  year  or  two  since,  before  there  was  a  prospect  of  extending 
the  Pennsylvania  canal  to  this  place,  it  became  desirable  to  bring 
the  coal  of  "  the  keystone  state"  to  these  southern  counties  by 
some  cheaper  conveyance  than  horse-teams.  A  friend  of  mine, 
living  here,  took  it  into  his  head  that,  as  salmon  and  shad  will 
ascend  a  fall  of  twenty  feet  in  a  river,  the  propulsive  energy  of 
their  tails  might  possibly  furnish  a  hint  for  a  steamer  that  would 
shoot  up  dams  and  i  apids.  The  suggestion  was  made  to  a  Con- 
necticut man,  who,  of  course,  undertook  it.  He  would  have  been 
less  than  a  Yankee  if  he  had  not  tried.  The  product  of  his 
ingenuity  was  the  steamboat  "  Susquehannah,"  drawing  but 


132  LETTER  XV. 


eighteen  inches ;  and,  besides  her  side-paddles,  having  an  im- 
mense wheel  in  the  stern,  which,  playing  in  the  slack  water  of  the 
boat,  would  drive  her  up  Niagara,  if  she  would  but  hold  together. 
The  principal  weight  of  her  machinery  hung  upon  two  wooden 
arches  running  fore  and  aft,  and  altogether  she  was  a  neat 
piece  of  contrivance,  and  promised  fairly  to  answer  the  purpose. 

I  think  the  "  Susquehannah"  had  made  three  trips  when  she 
broke  a  shaft,  and  was  laid  up ;  and,  what  with  one  delay  and 
another,  the  canal  was  half  completed  between  her  two  havens 
before  the  experiment  had  fairly  succeeded.  A  month  or  two 
since,  the  proprietors  determined  to  run  her  down  the  river  for 
the  purpose  of  selling  her,  and  I  was  invited,  among  others,  to 
join  in  the  trip. 

The  only  offices  professionally  filled  on  board,  were  those  of 
the  engineer  and  pilot.  Captain,  mate,  firemen,  steward,  cook, 
and  chambermaid,  were  represented  en  amateur,  by  gentlemen 
passengers.  We  rang  the  bell  at  the  starting  hour  with  the  zeal 
usually  displayed  in  that  department,  and,  by  the  assistance  of 
the  current,  got  off  in  the  usual  style  of  a  steamboat  departure, 
wanting  only  the  newsboys  and  pickpockets.  With  a  stream 
running  at  five  knots,  and  paddles  calculated  to  mount  a  cascade, 
we  could  not  fail  to  take  the  river  in  gallant  style,  and  before  we 
had  regulated  our  wood-piles  and  pantry,  we  were  backino-  water 
at  Athens,  twenty  miles  on  our  way. 

Navigating  the  Susquehannah  is  very  much  like  dancing  "  the 
cheat."  You  are  always  making  straight  up  to  a  mountain,  with 
no  apparent  possibility  of  escaping  contact  with  it,  and  it  is  an 
even  chance,  up  to  the  last  moment,  which  side  of  it  you  are  to 
•hassez  with  the  current.  Meantime  the  sun  seems  capering 


SITES  FOR  VILLAS.  133 


about  to  all  points  of  the  compass,  the  shadows  falling  in  every 
possible  direction,  and,  north,  south,  east,  and  west,  changing 
places  with  the  familiarity  of  a  masquerade.  The  blindness  of 
the  river's  course  is  increased  by  the  innumerable  small  islands 
in  its  bosom,  whose  tall  elms  and  close-set  willows  meet  half- 
way those  from  either  shore  ;  and,  the  current  very  often  dividing 
above  them,  it  takes  an  old  voyager  to  choose  between  the 
shaded  alleys,  by  either  of  which,  you  would  think,  Arethusa 
rnigh  have  eluded  her  lover. 

My  own  mental  occupation,  as  we  glided  on,  was  the  distribu- 
tion of  white  villas  along  the  shore,  on  spots  where  Nature  seemed 
to  have  arranged  the  ground  for  their  reception.  I  saw  thousands 
Df  sites  where  the  lawns  were  made,  the  terraces  defined  and 
levelled,  the  groves  tastefully  clumped,  the  ancient  trees  ready 
with  their  broad  shadows,  the  approaches  to  the  water  laid  out, 
the  banks  sloped,  and,  in  everything,  the  labor  of  art  seemingly 
all  anticipated  by  Nature.  I  grew  tired  of  exclaiming,  to  the 
friend  who  was  beside  me,  "  What  an  exquisite  site  for  a  villa  ! 
What  a  sweet  spot  for  a  cottage !"  If  I  had  had  the  power  to 
people  the  Susquehannah  by  the  wave  of  a  wand,  from  those  I 
know  capable  of  appreciating  its  beauty,  what  a  paradise  I  could 
have  spread  out  between  my  own  home  and  Wyoming !  It 
was  pleasant  to  know,  that,  by  changes  scarcely  less  than  magical, 
these  lovely  banks  will  soon  be  amply  seen  and  admired,  and 
probably  as  rapidly  seized  upon  and  inhabited  by  persons  of  taste. 
The  gangs  of  laborers  at  the  foot  of  every  steep  cliff,  doing  the 
first  rough  work  of  the  canal,  gave  promise  of  a  speedy  change  in 
the  aspect  of  this  almost  unknown  river. 

It  was  sometimes  ticklish  steering  among  the  rafts  and  arks 


134  LETTER  XV. 


with  which  the  river  was  thronged,  and  we  never  passed  one 
without  getting  the  raftsman's  rude  hail.  One  of  them  furnished 
my  vocabulary  with  a  new  measure  of  speed.  He  stood  at  the 
Btern  oar  of  a  shingle  raft,  gaping  at  us,  open-mouthed,  as  we 
came  down  upon  them.  "  Wai !"  said  he,  as  we  shot  past, 
"  you're  going  a  good  hickory,  mister !"  It  was  amusing,  again, 
to  run  suddenly  round  a  point  and  come  upon  a  raft  with  a 
minute's  warning ;  the  voyagers  as  little  expecting  an  intrusion 
upon  their  privacy,  as  a  retired  student  to  be  unroofed  in  a  Lon- 
don garret.  The  different  modes  of  expressing  surprise  became 
at  last  quite  a  study  to  me,  yet  total  indifference  was  not  infre- 
quent ;  and  there  were  some,  who,  I  think,  would  not  have  risen 
from  their  elbows  if  the  steamer  had  flown  bodily  over  them. 

We  passed  the  Falls  of  Wyalusing  (most  musical  of  Indian 
names)  and  Buttermilk  Falls,  both  cascades  worthy  of  being 
known  and  sung,  and  twilight  overtook  us  some  two  hours  from 
Wyoming.  We  had  no  lights  on  board,  and  the  engineer  was 
unwilling  to  run  in  the  dark ;  so,  our  pilot  being  an  old  raftsman, 
we  put  into  the  first  "  eddy,"  and  moored  for  the  night.  These 
eddies,  by  the  way,  would  not  easily  be  found  by  a  stranger,  but 
to  the  practiced  navigators  of  the  river  they  are  all  numbered 
and  named  like  harbors  on  a  coast.  The  strong  current,  in  the 
direct  force  of  which  the  clumsy  raft  would  find  it  impossible  to 
come  to,  and  moor,  is  at  these  places  turned  back  by  some  pro- 
jection of  the  shore,  or  ledge  at  the  bottom,  and  a  pool  of  still 
water  is  formed,  in  which  the  craft  may  lie  secure  for  the  night. 
The  lumbermen  give  a  cheer  when  they  have  steered  successfully 
in,  and,  springing  joyfully  ashore,  drive  their  stakes,  eat,  dance, 
quarrel,  and  sleep ;  and  many  a  good  tale  is  told  of  rafts  slily 


RAFT-RUNNING.  135 


unmoored,  and  set  adrift  at  midnight  by  parties  from  the  eddies 
above,  and  of  the  consequent  adventures  of  running  in  the  dark. 
We  had  on  board  two  gentlemen  who  had  earned  an  indepen- 
dence in  this  rough  vocation,  and  their  stories,  told  laughingly 
against  each  other,  developed  well  the  expedient  and  hazard  of 
the  vocation.  One  of  them  had  once  been  mischievously  cut 
adrift  by  the  owner  of  a  rival  cargo,  when  moored  in  an  eddy 
with  an  ark-load  of  grain.  The  article  was  scarce  and  high  in 
the  markets  below,  and  he  had  gone  to  sleep  securely  under  his 
penthouse,  and  was  dreaming  of  his  profits,  when  he  suddenly 
awoke  with  a  shock,  and  discovered  that  he  was  high  and  dry 
upon  a  sedgy  island  some  miles  below  his  moorings.  The  freshet 
was  falling  fast,  and,  soon  after  daylight,  his  competitor  for  the 
market  drifted  past  with  a  laugh,  and  confidently  shouted  out  a 
good-bye  till  another  voyage.  The  triumphant  ark-master  floated 
on  all  day,  moored  again  at  night,  and  arrived  safely  at  tide- 
water, where  the  first  object  that  struck  his  sight  was  the  ark 
he  had  left  in  the  sedges,  its  freight  sold,  its  owner  preparing  to 
return  home,  and  the  market  of  course  forestalled  !  The  "  Roland 
for  his  Oliver"  had,  with  incredible  exertion,  dug  a  canal  for  his 
ark,  launched  her  on  the  slime,  and,  by  risking  the  night-running, 
passed  him  unobserved,  and  gained  a  day — a  feat  as  illustrative 
of  the  American  genius  for  emergency  as  any  on  record. 

It  was  a  still,  starlight  night,  and  the  river  was  laced  with  the 
long  reflections  of  the  raft-fires,  while  the  softened  songs  of  the 
men  over  their  evening  carouse,  came  to  us  along  the  smooth 
water  with  the  effect  of  fur  better  music.  What  with  "  wooding" 
at  two  or  three  places,  however,  and  what  with  the  excitement 
of  the  day,  we  were  too  fatigued  to  give  more  than  a  glance  and 


186  LETTER  XV. 


a  passing  note  of  admiration  to  the  beauty  of  the  scene,  and  the 
next  question  was,  how  to  come  by  Sancho's  "  blessed  invention 
of  sleep."  We  had  been  detained  at  the  wooding-places,  and 
had  made  no  calculation  to  lie  by,  a  night.  There  were  no  beds 
on  board,  and  not  half  room  enough  in  the  little  cabin  to  distrib- 
ute, to  each  passenger,  six  feet  by  two  of  floor.  The  shore  was 
wild,  and  not  a  friendly  lamp  glimmering  on  the  hills  ;  but  the 
pilot  at  last  recollected  having  once  been  to  a  house,  a  mile  or 
two  back  from  the  river,  and,  with  the  diminished  remainder  of 
our  provender  as  a  pis  oiler  in  case  of  finding  no  supper  in  our 
forage,  we  started  in  search.  We  stumbled  and  scrambled,  and 
delivered  our  benisons  to  rock  and  brier,  till  I  would  fain  have 
lodged  with  Trinculo  "  under  a  moon-calf's  gaberdine ;"  but,  by- 
and-by,  our  leader  fell  upon  a  track,  and  a  light  soon  after  glim- 
mered before  us.  We  approached  through  cleared  fields,  and, 
without  the  consent  of  the  farmer's  dog,  to  whose  wishes  on  the 
subject  we  were  compelled  to  do  violence,  the  blaze  of  a  huge 
fire  (it  was  a  chilly  night  of  spring)  soon  bettered  our  resignation. 
A  stout,  white-headed  fellow  of  twenty -eight  or  thirty,  barefooted, 
sat  in  a  cradle,  see-sawing  before  the  fire,  and,  without  rising 
when  we  entered,  or  expressing  the  slightest  surprise  at  our  visit, 
he  replied,  to  our  questions,  that  he  was  the  father  of  some  twelve 
sorrel  and  barefoot  copies  of  himself  huddled  into  the  corner, 
that  "the  woman"  was  his  wife,  and  that  we  were  welcome  "  to 
stay."  Upon  this,  the  "  woman"  for  the  first  time  looked  at  us, 
counted  us  with  the  nods  of  her  head,  and  disappeared  with  the 
only  candle. 

When  his  wife  reappeared,  the  burly  fanner  extracted  himself 
with  some  difficulty  from  the  cradle,  and,  without  a  word  passing 


CHANCE  BEDFELLOW.  •    137 


between  them,  entered  upon  his  office  as  chamberlain.  We  fol- 
lowed him  up  stairs,  where  we  were  agreeably  surprised  to  find 
three  very  presentable  beds ;  and,  as  I  happened  to  be  the  last 
and  fifth,  I  felicitated  myself  on  the  good  chance  of  sleeping 
alone,  "  clapped  into  my  prayers,"  as  was  recommended  to  Mas- 
ter Barnardine,  and  was  asleep  before  the  candle-snuff.  I  should 
have  said  that  mine  was  a  "  single  bed,"  in  a  sort  of  a  closet  par- 
titioned off  from  the  main  chamber. 

How  long  I  had  travelled  in  dream-land  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing,  but  I  was  awoke  by  a  touch  on  the  shoulder,  and  the 
information  that  I  must  make  room  for  a  bedfellow.  It  was  a 
soft-voiced  young  gentleman,  as  well  as  I  could  perceive,  with 
his  collar  turned  down,  and  a  book  under  his  arm.  Without 
very  clearly  remembering  where  I  was,  I  represented  to  my  pro- 
posed friend  that  I  occupied  as  nearly  as  possible  the  whole  of 
the  bed — to  say  nothing  of  a  foot,  over  which  he  might  see  (the 
foot)  by  looking  where  it  outreached  the  coverlet.  It  was  a  very 
short  bed,  indeed. 

"  It  was  large  enough  for  me  till  you  came,"  said  the  stranger, 
modestly. 

"  Then  I  am  the  intruder  ?"  I  asked. 

"  No  intrusion  if  you  will  share  with  me,"  he  said ;  "  but  as 
this  is  my  bed,  and  I  have  no  resource  but  the  kitchen-fire,  per- 
haps you  will  let  me  in." 

There  was  no  resisting  his  tone  of  good  humor,  and  my  friend, 
by  this  time,  having  prepared  himself  to  take  up  as  little  room  as 
possible,  I  consented  that  he  should  blow  out  the  candle  and  get 
under  the  blnnket.  The  argument  and  the  effort  of  making  my- 
self small  as  he  crept  in,  had  partially  waked  me,  and  before  my 


138  LETTER  XV. 


ears  were  sealed  up  again,  I  learned  that  my  companion,  who 
proved  rather  talkative,  was  the  village  schoolmaster.  He  taught 
for  twelve  dollars  a  month  and  his  board — taking  the  latter  a 
week  at  a  time  with  the  different  families  to  which  his  pupils 
belonged.  For  the  present  week  he  was  quartered  upon  our 
host,  and,  having  been  out  visiting,  past  the  usual  hour  of  bedtime, 
he  was  not  aware  of  the  arrival  of  strangers  till  he  found  me  on 
his  pillow. 

I  went  to  sleep,  admiring  the  amiable  temper  of  my  new  friend 
under  the  circumstances,  but  awoke  presently  with  a  sense  of 
suffocation.  The  schoolmaster  was  fast  asleep,  but  his  arms 
were  clasped  tightly  round  my  throat.  I  disengaged  them  with- 
out waking  him,  and  composed  myself  again. 

Once  more  I  awoke  half  suffocated.  My  friend's  arms  had 
found  their  way  again  around  my  neck,  and,  though  evidently 
fast  asleep,  he  was  drawing  me  to  him  with  a  clasp  I  found  it 
difficult  to  unloose.  I  shook  him  broad  awake,  and  begged 
him  to  take  notice  that  he  was  sleeping  with  a  perfect  stranger. 
He  seemed  very  much  annoyed  at  having  disturbed  me,  made 
twenty  apologies,  and,  turning  his  back,  soon  fell  asleep.  I 
followed  his  example,  wishing  him  a  new  turn  to  his  dream. 

A  third  time  I  sprang  up  choking  from  the  pillow,  drawing 
my  companion  fairly  on  end  with  me.  I  could  stand  it  no  longer. 
Even  when  half  aroused  he  could  hardly  be  persuaded  to  let  go 
his  hold  of  my  neck.  I  jumped  out  of  bed,  and  flung  open  the 
window  for  a  little  air.  The  moon  had  risen,  and  the  night  was 
exquisitely  fine.  A  brawling  brook  ran  under  the  window,  and, 
after  a  minute  or  two,  being  thoroughly  awaked,  I  looked  at  my 
watch  in  the  moonlight,  and  found  it  wanted  but  an  hour  or  two 


WYOMING.  139 


of  morning.  Afraid  to  risk  my  throat  aga;n,  and  remembering 
that  I  could  not  fairly  quarrel  with  my  friend,  who  had  undoubt- 
edly a  right  to  embrace,  after  his  own  fashion,  any  intruder  who 
ventured  into  his  proper  bed,  I  went  down  stairs,  and  raked  open 
the  embers  of  the  kitchen  fire,  which  served  me  for  less  affec- 
tionate company  till  dawn.  How  and  where  he  could  have 
acquired  his  caressing  habits,  were  subjects  upon  which  I  specu- 
lated unsatisfactorily  over  the  coals. 

My  companions  were  called  up  at  sunrise  by  the  landlord,  and, 
as  we  were  paying  for  our  lodging,  the  schoolmaster  came  down 
to  see  us  off.  I  was  less  surprised  when  I  came  to  look  at  him 
by  daylight.  It  was  a  fair,  delicate  boy  of  sixteen,  whose  slen- 
der health  had  probably  turned  his  attention  to  books,  and  who, 
perhaps,  had  never  slept  away  from  his  mother  till  he  went 
abroad  to  teach  school.  Quite  satisfied  with  one  experiment  of 
filling  the  maternal  relation,  I  wished  him  a  less  refractory  bed- 
fellow, and  we  hastened  on  board. 

The  rafts  were  under  weigh  before  us,  and  the  tortoise  had 
overtaken  the  hare,  for  we  passed  several  that  we  had  passed  higher 
up,  and  did  not  fail  to  get  a  jeer  for  our  sluggishness.  An  hour 
or  two  brought  us  to  Wilkesbarre,  an  excellent  hotel,  good  break- 
fast, and  new  and  kind  friends ;  and  so  ended  my  trip  on  the 
Susquehannah.  Some  other  time  I  will  tell  you  how  beautiful  is 
the  valley  of  Wyoming,  which  I  have  since  seen  in  the  hoiyday 
colors  of  October.  Thereby  hangs  a  tale,  too,  worth  telling  and 
hearing  ;  and,  as  a  promise  is  good  parting  stuff,  adieu  ! 


LETTER   XVI. 

THE  books  and  the  music  came  safe  to  hand,  dear  Doctor,  but 
I  trust  we  are  not  to  stand  upon  quid-pro- quosities.  The  barrel 
of  buckwheat  not  only  cost  me  nothing,  but  I  have  had  my  uses  of 
it  in  the  raising,  and  can  no  more  look  upon  its  value,  than  upon 
a  flower  which  I  pluck  to  smell,  and  give  away  when  it  is  faded. 
I  have  sold  some  of  my  crops  for  the  oddity  of  the  sensation  ; 
and  I  assure  you  it  is  very  much  like  being  paid  for  dancing 
when  the  ball  is  over.  Why,  consider  the  offices  this  very  buck- 
wheat has  performed !  There  was  the  trust  in  Providence,  in  the 
purchase  of  the  seed — a  sermon.  There  were  the  exercise  and 
health  in  ploughing,  harrowing,  and  sowing — prescription  and 
pill.  There  was  the  performance  of  the  grain,  its  sprouting,  its 
flowering,  its  earing,  and  its  ripening — a  great  deal  more  amus- 
ing than  a  play.  Then  there  were  the  harvesting,  thrashing,  fan- 
ning, and  grinding — a  sort  of  pastoral  collection,  publication,  and 
purgation  by  criticism.  Now  suppose  your  clergyman,  your  phy 
sician,  your  favorite  theatrical  corps,  your  publisher,  printer,  and 
critic,  thrashed  and  sold  in  bags  for  six  shillings  a  bushel !  I  as- 
sure you  the  cases  are  similar,  except  that  the  buckwheat  make* 
probably  the  more  savory  cake. 


MAGAZINE-WRITERS.  141 


The  new  magazine  was  welcome ;  the  more,  that  it  brought 
•Aack  to  me  my  own  days  of  rash  adventure  in  such  ticklish  craft, 
with  a  pleasant  sense  of  deliverance  from  its  risk  and  toil.  The 
imprint  of  "  No.  I,  Vol.  I,"  reads  to  me  like  a  bond  for  the  un- 
reserved abandonment  of  time  and  soul.  Truly,  youth  is  wisely 
provided  with  little  forethought,  and  much  hope.  What  child 
would  learn  the  alphabet,  if  he  could  see  at  a  glance  the  toil  that 
lies  behind  it  ?  I  look  upon  the  fresh  type  and  read  the  san- 
guine prospectus  of  this  new-born  Monthly,  and  remember,  with 
astonishment,  the  thoughtlessness  with  which,  years  ago,  I 
launched,  in  the  same  gay  colors,  such  a  venture  on  the  wave.  It 
is  a  voyage  that  requires  plentiful  stores,  much  experience  of  the 
deeps  and  shallows  of  the  literary  seas,  and  a  hand  at  every  hal- 
yard ;  yet,  to  abandon  my  simile,  I  proposed  to  be  publisher  and 
editor,  critic  and  contributor ;  and  I  soon  found  that  I  might  as 
well  have  added  reader  to  my  manifold  offices.  No  one  who  has 
not  tried  this  vocation  can  have  any  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  pro- 
curing the  light,  yet  condensed — the  fragmented,  yet  finished — 
the  good-tempered  and  gentlemanly,  yet  high-seasoned  and  dash- 
ing papers  necessary  to  a  periodical.  A  man  who  can  write 
them,  can,  in  our  country,  put  himself  to  a  more  profitable  use — 
and  does.  The  best  magazine-writer  living,  in  my  opinion,  is  Ed- 
ward Everett ;  and  he  governs  a  State  with  the  same  time  and 
attention  which,  in  England,  perhaps,  would  be  cramped  to  con- 
tributing to  a  review.  Calhoun  might  write  wonderfully  fine 
articles.  Legare,  of  Charleston,  has  the  right  talent,  with  the 
learning.  Crittenden,  of  the  Senate,  I  should  think,  might  have 
written  the  most  brilliant  satirical  papers.  But  these,  and  others 
like  them,  are  men  the  country  and  their  own  ambition  can  not 


142  LET1ER  XVI. 


spare.  There  is  a  younger  class  of  writers,  however;  and 
though  the  greater  number  of  these,  too,  fill  responsible  stations 
in  society,  separate  from  general  literature,  they  might  be  in- 
duced, probably,  were  the  remuneration  adequate,  to  lend  their 
support  to  a  periodical  "  till  the  flower  of  their  fame  shall  be 
more  blown."  Among  them  are  Felton  and  Longfellow,  both 
professors  at  Cambridge  ;  and  Sumner  and  Henry  Cleaveland, 
lawyers  of  Boston — a  knot  of  writers  who  sometimes  don  the 
cumbrous  armor  of  the  North  American  Review,  but  who  would 
show  to  more  advantage  in  the  lighter  harness  of  the  monthlies. 
I  could  name  twenty  more,  to  any  one  interested  to  know  them, 
all  valuable  allies  to  a  periodical ;  but  no  literary  man  questions 
that.  We  have  in  our  country  talent  enough,  if  there  were  the 
skill  and  means  to  put  it  judiciously  together. 

Coleridge  and  others  have  mourned  over  the  age  of  reviews,  as 
the  downfall  and  desecration  of  authorship ;  but  I  am  inclined  to 
think  authors  gain  more  than  they  lose  by  the  facility  of  criticism. 
What  chance  has  a  book  on  a  shelf,  waiting  to  be  called  for  by 
the  purchaser  uninformed  of  its  merits,  to  one  whose  beauties 
and  defects  have  been  canvassed  by  these  Mercury-winged  mes- 
sengers, volant  and  universal  as  the  quickest  news  of  the  hour  ? 
How  slow  and  unsympathetic  must  have  been  the  progress  of  a 
reputation,  when  the  judicious  admirer  of  a  new  book  could  but 
read  and  put  it  by,  expressing  his  delight,  at  farthest,  to  his 
immediate  friend  or  literary  correspondent  ?  The  apprehensive 
and  honest  readers  of  a  book  are  never  many  ;  but,  in  our  days, 
if  it  reach  but  one  of  these,  what  is  the  common  outlet  of  his  en- 
thusiasm? Why,  a  trumpet-tongued  review,  that  makes  an 
entire  people  partakers  of  his  appreciation,  in  the  wax  and  wane 


LITERARY  FAIRNESS.  143 


of  a  single  moon.  Greedily  as  all  men  and  women  devour  books, 
ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  require  them  to  be  first  cut  up — lia- 
ble else,  like  children  at  their  meals,  to  swallow  the  wrong  mor- 
sel. Yet,  like  children,  still,  when  the  good  is  pointed  out,  they 
digest  it  as  well  as  another ;  and  so  is  diffused  an  understanding, 
as  well  as  prompt  admiration  of  the  author.  For  myself,  I  am 
free  to  confess,  I  am  one  of  those  who  like  to  take  the  first  taste 
of  an  author  in  a  good  review.  I  look  upon  the  reviewer  as  a 
sensible  friend,  who  came  before  me  to  the  feast,  and  recommends 
to  me  the  dish  that  has  most  pleased  him.  There  is  a  fellowship 
in  agreeing  that  it  is  good.  I  have  often  wished  there  were  a 
Washington  among  the  critics — some  one  upon  whose  judgment, 
freedom  from  paltry  motives,  generosity  and  fairness,  I  could  pin 
my  faith  blindly  and  implicitly.  Dilke,  of  the  London  Athenae- 
um, is  the  nearest  approach  to  this  character,  and  a  good  proof  of 
it  is  an  order  frequently  given,  (a  London  publisher  informed  me,) 
by  country  gentlemen :  "  Send  me  everything  the  Athenaeum 
praises."  Though  a  man  of  letters,  Dilke  is  not  an  author,  and, 
by  the  way,  dear  Doctor,  I  think  in  that  lies  the  best  qualifica- 
tion, if  not  the  only  chance  for  the  impartiality  of  the  critic. 
How  few  authors  are  capable  of  praising  a  book  by  which  their 
own  is  thrown  into  shadow.  "  Why  does  Plato  never  mention 
Zenophon  ?  and  why  does  Zenophon  inveigh  against  Plato  ?" 

But  I  think  there  is  less  to  fear  from  jealousy,  than  from  the 
want  of  sympathy  between  writers  on  different  subjects,  or  in 
different  styles.  D'Israeli.  the  elder,  from  whom  I  have  just 
quoted,  sounds  the  depth  of  this  matter  with  the  very  plummet 
of  truth.  "  Every  man  of  genius  has  a  manner  of  his  own ;  a 
mode  of  thinking  and  a  habit  of  style  ;  and  usually  decides  on  a 


144  LETTER  XVI. 


work  as  it  approximates  or  varies  from  his  own.  When  one  great 
author  depreciates  another,  it  has  often  no  worse  source  than  his 
own  taste.  The  witty  Cowley  despised  the  natural  Chaucer ; 
the  cold,  classical  Boileau,  the  rough  sublimity  of  Crebillon ;  the 
refining  Marivaux,  the  familiar  Moliere.  The  deficient  sympathy 
in  these  men  of  genius,  for  modes  of  feeling  opposite  to  their  own, 
was  the  real  cause  of  their  opinions ;  and  thus  it  happens  that 
even  superior  genius  is  so  often  liable  to  be  unjust  and  false  in  its 
decisions." 

Apropos  of  English  periodicals,  we  get  them  now  almost  wet 
from  the  press,  and  they  seem  far  off  and  foreign  no  longer. 
But  there  is  one  (to  me)  melancholy  note  in  the  paean  with  which 
the  Great  Western  was  welcomed.  In  literature  we  are  no  longer 
a  distinct  nation.  The  triumph  of  Atlantic  steam  navigation  has 
driven  the  smaller  drop  into  the  larger,  and  London  has  become 
the  centre.  Farewell  nationality !  The  English  language  now 
marks  the  limits  of  a  new  literary  empire,  and  America  is  a 
suburb.  Our  themes,  our  resources,  the  disappearing  savage, 
and  the  retiring  wilderness,  the  free  thought,  and  the  action  as 
free,  the  spirit  of  daring  innovation,  and  the  irreverent  question 
of  usage,  the  picturesque  mixture  of  many  nations  in  an  equal 
home,  the  feeling  of  expanse,  of  unsubserviency,  of  distance  from 
time-hallowed  authority  and  prejudice — all  the  elements  which 
were  working  gradually  but  gloriously  together  to  make  us  a 
nation  by  ourselves,  have,  in  this  approximation  of  shores,  either 
perished  for  our  using,  or  slipped  within  the  clutch  of  England. 
What  effect  the  now  near  and  jealous  criticism  of  that  country 
will  have  upon  our  politics,  :s  a  deeper  question ;  but  our  literature 
is  subsidized  at  a  blow.  Hitherto  we  have  been  to  tl  em  a 


AMERICAN  REHEARSAL  OF  FAME  145 


strange  country ;  the  few  books  that  reached  them  they  criticised 
with  complimentary  jealousy,  or  with  the  courtesy  due  to  a 
stranger;  while  our  themes  and  our  political  structures  were 
looked  on  with  the  advantage  of  distance,  undemeaned  by  ac- 
quaintance with  sources  or  familiarity  with  details.  While  all  our 
material  is  thrown  open  to  English  authors,  we  gain  nothing  in 
exchange,  for,  with  the  instinct  of  descendants,  we  have  continued 
to  look  back  to  our  fathers,  and  our  conversance  with  the  wells 
of  English  literature  was  as  complete  as  their  own. 

The  young  American  author  is  the  principal  sufferer  by  the 
change.  Imagine  an  actor  compelled  to  make  a  debut  without 
rehearsal,  and  you  get  a  faint  shadow  of  what  he  has  lost.  It  was 
some  advantage,  let  me  tell  you,  dear  Doctor,  to  have  run  the 
gauntlet  of  criticism  in  America  before  being  heard  of  in  Eng- 
land. When  Irving  and  Cooper  first  appeared  as  authors  abroad, 
they  sprung  to  sight  like  Minerva,  full-grown.  They  had  seen 
themselves  in  print,  had  reflected  and  improved  upon  private  and 
public  criticism,  and  were  made  aware  of  their  faults  before  they 
were  irrecoverably  committed  on  this  higher  theatre.  Keats 
died  of  a  rebuke  to  his  puerilities,  which,  had  it  been  admin- 
istered here,  would  have  been  borne  up  against,  with  the  hope  of 
higher  appeal  and  new  effort.  He  might  have  been  the  son  of 
an  American  apothecary,  and  never  be  told  by  an  English  critic 
to  "return  to  his  gallipots."  The  Atlantic  was,  hitherto,  a 
friendly  Lethe,  in  which  the  sins  of  youth  (so  heavily  and  un- 
justly visited  on  aspirants  to  fame)  were  washed  out  and  for- 
gotten. The  American,  "  licked  into  shape"  by  the  efficient 
tongues  of  envy  and  jealousy  at  home,  stepped  ashore  in  England, 
wary  and  guarded  against  himself  and  others.  The  book  by 

VOL.  i.  7 


146  LETTER  XVI. 


which  he  had  made  himself  known,  might  have  been  the  suc- 
cessful effort  after  twenty  failures,  and  it  met  with  the  indulgence 
of  a  first.  The  cloud  of  his  failures,  the  remembrance  of  his 
degradations  by  ridicule  were  left  behind.  His  practiced  skill 
was  measured  by  other's  beginnings. 

We  suffer,  too,  in  our  social  position,  ir?  England.  We  have 
sunk  from  the  stranger  to  the  suburban  or  provincial.  In  a  year 
or  two  every  feature  and  detail  of  our  country  will  be  as  well 
known  to  English  society  as  those  of  Margate  and  Brighton. 
Our  similarity  to  themselves  in  most  things  will  not  add  to  their 
respect  for  us.  We  shall  have  the  second  place  accorded  to  the 
jidigenous  society  of  well-known  places  of  resort  or  travel,  and 
to  be  an  American  will  be,  in  England,  like  being  a  Maltese  or  an 
East  Indian — every  way  inferior,  in  short,  to  a  metropolitan  in 
London. 

You  see,  my  dear  Doctor,  how  I  make  my  correspondence 
with  you  serve  as  a  trap  for  my  stray  thoughts ;  and  you  will 
say,  that  in  this  letter  I  have  caught  some  that  might  us  well 
have  escaped.  But  as  the  immortal  Jack  "  turned"  even  "  dis- 
eases to  commodity,"  and  as  "  la  superiorite  est  une  infirmite 
sociale"  perhaps  you  will  tolerate  my  dullness,  or  consider  it  a 
polite  avoidance  of  your  envy.  Write  me  better  or  worse,  how- 
ever, and  I  will  shape  a  welcome  to  it. 


LETTER   XVII. 

Do  you  remember,  my  dear  Doctor,  in  one  of  the  Elizabethan 
dramas,  (I  forget  which,)  the  description  of  the  contention 
between  the  nightingale  and  the  page's  lute  ?  Did  you  ever 
remark  how  a  bird,  sitting  silent  in  a  tree,  will  trill  out,  at  the 
first  note  which  breaks  the  stillness,  as  if  it  had  waited  for  that 
signal  to  begin  ?  Have  you  noticed  the  emulation  of  pigs  in  a 
pasture — how  the  galloping  by  of  a  horse  in  the  road  sets  them 
off  for  a  race  to  the  limits  of  the  cross-fence. 

I  have  been  sitting  here  with  my  feet  upon  the  autumn  leaves, 
portfolio  on  knee,  for  an  hour.  The  shadow  of  the  bridge  cuts 
a  line  across  my  breast,  leaving  my  thinking  machinery  in  shad- 
ow, while  the  farmer  portion  of  me  mellows  in  the  sun ;  the  air 
is  as  still  as  if  we  had  suddenly  ceased  to  hear  the  growing  of 
the  grain,  and  the  brook  runs  leaf-shod  over  the  pebbles,  like  a 
child  frightened  by  the  silence  into  a  whisper.  You  would  say 
this  was  the  very  mark  and  fashion  of  an  hour  for  the  silent 
sympathy  of  letter- writing.  Yet  here  have  I  sat  with  the  temp- 
tation of  an  unblotted  sheet  before  me,  and  my  heart  and 
thoughts  full  and  ready ;  and,  by  my  steady  gazing  in  the  brook, 
you  would  fancy  I  had  taken  the  sun's  function  to  myself,  and 


148  LETTER  XVII. 


was  sitting  idle  to  shine.  All  at  once  from  the  open  window  of 
the  cottage  poured  a  passionate  outbreak  of  Beethoven's  music, 
(played  by  the  beloved  hand,)  and  with  a  kind  of  fear  that  I 
should  overtake  it,  and  a  resistless  desire  (which,  I  dare  say,  you 
have  felt  in  hearing  music)  to  appropriate  such  angelic  utterance 
to  the  expression  of  my  own  feelings,  I  forthwith  started  into  a 
scribble,  and  have  filled  my  first  page  as  you  see — without 
drawing  nib.  If  turning  over  the  leaf  b:eak  not  the  charm,  you 
are  likely  to  have  an  answer  writ  to  your  last  before  the  shadow 
on  my  breast  creep  two  buttons  downward. 

Your  letter  was  short,  and  if  this  were  not  the  commencement 
of  a  new  score,  I  should  complain  of  it  more  gravely.  Writing 
so  soon  after  we  had  parted,  you  might  claim  that  you  had  little 
to  say ;  yet  I  thought  (over  that  broiled  oyster  after  the  play) 
that  your  voluble  discourse  would  "  put  a  girdle  round  the 
earth"  in  less  time  than  Ariel.  I  listened  to  you  as  a  child  looks 
at  the  river,  wondering  when  it  would  all  run  by.  Yet  that 
might  be  partly  disuse  in  listening — for  I  have  grown  rustic  with 
a  year's  seclusion.  I  found  it  in  other  things.  My  feet  swelled 
with  walking  on  the  pavement.  My  eyes  were  giddy  with  the 
multitude  of  people.  My  mouth  became  parched  with  the  ex- 
citement of  greetings  and  surprises,  and  the  raising  of  my  tones 
to  the  metropolitan  pitch.  I  was  nearly  exhausted,  by  mid- day, 
with  the  "infinite  deal  cf  nothing."  Homoeopathy  alone  can 
explain  why  "  Patter  versus  Clatter  "  did  not  finish  me  quite. 

Ah !  how  admirably  Charles  Matthews  played  that  night ! 
The  papers  have  well  named  him  the  Mercury  of  comedians. 
His  playing  will  probably  create  a  new  school  of  play-writing — 
something  like  what  he  has  aimed  at  (without  sufficient  study)  in 


WANE  OF  DANDIES.  149 


the  pieces  lie  has  written  for  himself.  The  finest  thing  1  could 
imagine,  in  the  dramatic  way,  would  be  a  partnership  (a  la  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher)  between  the  stage  knowledge  and  comk 
talent  of  Matthews,  and  the  penetrating,  natural,  and  observant 
humor  of  Boz.  The  true  "  humor  of  the  time"  has  scarcely 
been  reached,  on  the  stage,  since  Moliere  ;  and,  it  seems  to  me, 
that  a  union  of  the  talents  of  these  two  men  (both  very  young) 
might  bring  about  a  new  era  in  high  comedy.  Matthews  has 
the  advantage  of  having  been,  from  boyhood,  conversant  with  the 
most  polished  society.  He  was  taken  to  Italy  when  a  boy,  by 
one  of  the  most  munificent  and  gay  noblemen  of  England,  an 
intimate  of  his  father,  and,  if  I  have  been  rightly  informed,  was 
his  companion  for  several  years  of  foreign  residence  and  travel. 
I  remember  meeting  him  at  a  dinner-party  in  London  three  or 
four  years  since,  when  probably  he  had  never  thought  seriously 
of  the  stage.  Yet,  at  that  time,  it  was  remarked  by  the  person 
who  sat  next  me,  that  a  better  actor  than  his  father  was  spoiled  in 
the  son.  He  was  making  no  particular  effort  at  humor  on  the 
occasion  to  which  I  refer  ;  but  the  servants,  including  a  fat  butler 
of  remarkable  gravity,  were  forced  to  ask  permission  to  leave  the 
room — their  laughter  becoming  uncontrollable.  He  would  doubt- 
less have  doubled  his  profits  in  this  country  had  he  come  as  a 
single  star ;  but,  I  trust  his  success  will  still  be  sufficient  to  estab- 
lish him  in  an  annual  orbit — from  east  to  west. 

One  goes  to  the  city  with  fresh  eyes  after  a  year's  absence, 
and  I  was  struck  with  one  or  two  things,  which,  in  their  gradual 
wax  or  wane,  you  do  not  seem  to  have  remarked.  What  Te 
Deum  has  been  chanted,  for  example,  over  the  almost  complete 
disappearance  of  the  dandies  ?  I  saw  but  two  while  I  was  in 


150  LETTEH  XVII. 


New  York,  and  in  them  it  was  Nature's  caprice.  They  would 
have  been  dandies  equally  in  fig-leaves  or  wampum.  The  era  of 
(studiously)  plain  clothes  arrived  some  years  ago  in  England, 
where  Count  D'Orsay,  and  an  occasional  wanderer  from  Broad- 
way, are  the  only  freshly-remembered  apparitions  of  excessively 
dressed  men  ;  and,  slow  as  has  been  its  advent  to  us,  it  is  sooner 
come  than  was  predicted.  I  feared,  for  one,  that  our  European 
reputation,  of  being  the  most  expensive  and  showy  of  nations,  was 
based  upon  the  natural  extreme  of  our  political  character,  and 
would  last  as  long  as  the  republic.  I  am  afraid,  still,  that  the 
ostentation  once  shown  in  dress  is  but  turned  into  another  channel, 
and  that  the  equipages  of  New  York  more  than  supply  the 
showiness  abated  in  the  costume.  But  even  this  is  a  step 
onward.  Finery  on  the  horse  is  better  than  finery  on  the  owner. 
The  caparison  of  an  equipage  is  a  more  manly  study  than  the 
toilet  of  the  fine  gentleman  ;  and  possesses,  besides,  the  advan- 
tage of  being  left  properly  to  the  saddler.  On  the  whole,  it 
struck  me  that  the  countenance  of  Broadway  had  lost  a  certain 
flimsy  and  tinsel  character  with  which  it  used  to  impress  me,  and 
had,  in  a  manner,  grown  hearty  and  unpretentious.  I  should 
be  glad  to  know  (and  none  can  tell  me  better  than  yourself ) 
whether  this  is  the  outer  seeming  of  deeper  changes  in  our 
character.  Streets  have  expressive  faces,  and  I  have  long  marked 
and  trusted  them.  It  would  be  difficult  to  feel  fantastic  in  the 
sumptuous  gravity  of  Bond  Street — as  difficult  to  feel  grave 
in  the  bright  airiness  of  the  Boulevard.  In  these  two  thorough- 
fares you  are  made  to  feel  the  distinctive  qualities  of  England  and 
France.  What  say  you  of  the  changed  expression  of  Broadway  ? 
Miss  Martineau,  of  all  travellers,  has  doubtless  written  the 


CRITICISMS  OF  MANNERS.  151 


most  salutary  book  upon  our  manners,  (malgre  the  womanish 
pique  which  distorted  her  judgment  of  Everett  and  others,)  but 
there  is  one  reproach  which  she  has  recorded  against  us,  in  which 
I  have  felt  some  patriotic  glory,  but  which  I  am  beginning  to 
fear  we  deserve  no  longer.  The  text  of  her  fault-finding  is  the 
Quixotic  attentions  of  Americans  to  women  in  public  conveyances, 
apropos  of  a  gentleman's  politeness  who  took  an  outside  seat 
upon  a  coach  to  give  a  lady  room  for  her  feet.  From  what  I 
could  observe,  in  my  late  two  or  three  days'  travel,  I  think  I 
could  encourage  Miss  Marti neau  to  return  to  America  with  but  a 
trifling  risk  of  being  too  particularly  attended  to,  even  were  she 
incognita  and  young.  We  owe  this  decadence  of  chivalry  to  Miss 
Martineau,  I  think  it  may  be  safely  said.  In  a  country  where 
ever)'  person  of  common  education  reads  every  book  of  travels  hi 
which  his  manners  are  discussed,  the  most  casual  mention  of  a 
blemish,  even  by  a  less  authority  than  Miss  Martineau,  acts  as  an 
instant  cautery.  I  venture  to  say  that  a  young  lady  could 
scarcely  be  found  in  the  United  States,  who  would  not  give  you, 
on  demand,  a  complete  list  of  our  national  faults  and  foibles,  as 
recorded  by  Hall,  Hamilton,  Trollope,  and  Martineau.  Why, 
they  form  the  common  staple  of  conversation  and  jest !  Ay,  and 
of  speculation  !  Hamilton's  book  was  scarcely  dry  from  the  press 
before  orders  were  made  out  to  an  immense  extent  for  egg-cups 
and  silver  forks.  Mrs.  Trollope  quite  extinguished  the  trade  in 
spit-boxes,  and  made  fortunes  for  the  finger-glass  manufacturers  ; 
and,  Captain  Marryat,  I  understand,  is  besieged  in  every  city  by 
the  importers,  to  know  upon  what  deficiency  of  table  furniture  he 
intends  to  be  severe.  It  has  been  more  than  once  suggested, 
(and  his  manners  aided  the  idea,)  that  Hamilton  was  probably  a 


152  LETTER  XVII. 


travelling  agent  for  the  plated-fork  manufactories  of  Birmingham. 
And  a  fair  caveat  to  both  readers  and  reviewers  of  future  books 
of  travels,  would  be  an  inquiry  touching  their  probable  bearing 
on  English  manufactures.  I  would  not  be  illiberal  to  Miss  Marti- 
neau,  but  I  would  ask  any  candid  person,  whether  the  influx  of 
thick  shoes  and  cotton  stockings,  simultaneously  with  her  arrival 
in  this  country,  could  have  been  entirely  an  unpremeditated 
coincidence  ? 

We  are  indebted,  I  think,  to  the  Astor  House,  for  one  of  the 
pleasantest  changes  that  I  noticed  while  away — and  I  like  it  the 
better,  that  it  is  a  departure  from  our  general  rule  of  imitating 
English  habits  too  exclusively.  You  were  with  us  there,  and  can 
bear  witness  to  the  refined  class  we  met  at  the  ladies'  ordi- 
nary; while  the  excellence  of  the  table  and  service,  and  the 
prevalence  of  well-bred  company,  had  drawn  the  most  exclusive 
from  then*  private  parlors,  and  given  to  the  daily  society  of  the 
drawing-room  the  character  of  the  gay  and  agreeable  watering 
places  of  Germany.  The  solitary  confinement  of  English  hotels 
always  seemed  to  me  particularly  unsuited  to  the  position  and 
wants  of  the  traveller.  Loneliness  is  no  evil  at  home,  where 
books  and  regular  means  of  employment  are  at  hand  ;  but,  to  be 
abandoned  to  four  walls  and  a  pormanteau,  in  a  strange  city,  of 
a  rainy  day,  is  what  nothing  but  an  Englishman  would  dream  of 
calling  comfortable.  It  was  no  small  relief  to  us,  on  that  drizzly 
and  chilly  autumn  day  which  you  remember,  to  descend  to  a 
magnificent  drawing-room,  filled  with  some  fifty  or  a  hundred 
well-bred  people,  and  pass  away  the  hours  as  they  would  be 
passed  under  similar  circumstances  in  a  hospitable  country-house 
in  England.  The  beautiful  architecture  of  the  Astor  apartments 


CEMETERIES.  153 


and  the  sumptuous  elegance  of  the  furniture  and  table  service, 
make  it  in  a  measure  a  peculiarity  of  the  house ;  but  the  exam- 
ple is  likely  to  be  followed  in  other  hotels  and  cities,  and,  I  hope 
it  will  become  a  national  habit,  as  in  Germany,  for  strangers  to 
meet  at  their  meals  and  in  the  public  rooms.  Life  seems  to  me 
too  short  for  English  exclusive-ness  in  travel. 

I  determined  to  come  home  by  Wyoming,  after  you  left  us, 
and  took  the  boat  to  Philadelphia  accordingly.  We  passed  two 
or  three  days  in  that  clean  and  pleasant  city,  and,  among  other 
things,  made  an  excursion  to  Laurel  Hill — certainly  the  most 
beautiful  cemetery  in  the  world  after  the  Necropolis  of  Scutari. 
Indeed,  the  spot  is  selected  with  something  like  Turkish  feeling, 
for  it  seems  as  if  it  were  intended  to  associate  the  visits,  to  the 
resting-places  of  the  departed,  more  with  our  pleasures  than  our 
duties.  The  cemetery  occupies  a  lofty  promonotory  above  the 
Sclmylkill,  possessing  the  inequality  of  surface  so  favorable  to 
the  object,  and  shaded  with  pines  and  other  ornamental  trees  of 
great  age  and  beauty.  The  views  down  upon  the  river,  and 
through  the  sombre  glades  and  alleys  of  the  burial-grounds,  are 
unsurpassed  for  sweetness  and  repose.  The  elegance  which 
marks  everything  Philadelphian,  is  shown  already  in  the  few 
monuments  erected..  An  imposing  gateway  leads  you  in  from 
the  high  road,  and  a  freestone  group,  large  as  life,  representing 
Old  Mortality  at  work  on  an  inscription,  and  Scott  leaning  upon 
a  tombstone  to  watch  his  toil,  faces  the  entrance.  I  noticed  the 
area  of  one  tomb  enclosed  by  a  chain  of  hearts,  cast  beautifully 
in  iron.  The  whole  was  laid  out  in  gravel-walks,  and  there  was 
no  grave  without  its  flowers.  I  confess  the  spirit  of  this  sweet 
spot  affected  me  deeply  ;  and  I  look  upon  this,  and  Mount  Auburn 
7* 


154  LETTER  XVII. 


at  Cambridge,  as  delightful  indications  of  a  purer  growth  in  our 
national  character  than  politics  and  money-getting.  It  is  a  real- 
life  poetry,  which  reflects  as  much  glory  upon  the  age  as  the  birth 
of  a  Homer. 

The  sun  has  crept  down  to  my  paper,  dear  Doctor,  and  the 
shadow  of  the  bridge  falls  cooler  ^han  is  good  for  my  rheuma- 
tism. I  wish  that  the  blessing  of  Ceres  upon  Ferdinand  and 
Miranda, 

"  Spring  come  to  you  at  farthest, 
In  the  very  end  of  harvest," 

might  light  on  Glenmary.  I  enjoy  winter  when  it  comes,  but  its 
approach  is  altogether  detestable.  It  is  delightful  to  get  home, 
however ;  for,  like  Prospero,  in  the  play  I  have  just  quoted, 
there  is  a  "  delicate  Ariel,"  (content,)  who  only  waits  on  me  in 
solitude.  You  will  carry  out  the  allegory,  and  tell  me  I  have 
Caliban  too,  but,  to  the  rudeness  of  country  monsters,  I  take  as 
kindly  as  Trinculo.  And  now  I  must  to  the  woods,  and  by  the 
aid  of  these  same  "  ancient  and  fish-like  "  monsters,  transplant 
me  a  tree  or  two  before  sunset.  Adieu. 


LETTEE   XVIII. 

OUR  summei  founds  are  flown,  dear  Doctor ;  not  ct  leaf  on  the 
dogwood  worth  iratching,  though  its  fluted  leaves  were  the  last. 
Still  the  cottage  looks  summery  when  the  sun  shines,  for  the  fir- 
trees,  which  were  half  lost  among  the  flaunting  of  the  deciduous 
foliage,  look  out,  green  and  unchanged,  from  the  naked  branches 
of  the  grove,  with  neither  reproach  for  our  neglect,  nor  boast 
over  the  departed.  They  are  like  friends,  who,  in  thinking  of 
our  need,  forget  all  they  have  laid  up  against  us ;  and,  between 
them  and  the  lofty  spirits  of  mankind,  there  is  another  point  of 
resemblance  which  I  am  woodsman  enough  to  know.  Hew  down 
those  gay  trees,  whose  leaves  scatter  at  the  coming  of  winter., 
and  they  will  sprout  from  the  trodden  root  more  vigorously  than 
before.  The  evergreen,  once  struck  to  the  heart,  dies.  If  you 
are  of  my  mind,  you  would  rather  learn  such  a  pretty  mock  of 
yourself  in  Nature,  than  catch  a  fish  with  a  gold  ring  in  his  maw. 
A  day  or  two  since,  very  much  such  another  bit  of  country 
wisdom  dropped  into  my  ears,  which  I  thought  might  be  availa- 
ble in  poetry,  albeit  the  proof  be  unpoetical.  Talking  with  my 
neighbor,  the  miller,  about  sawing  lumber  for  a  stable  I  am  build- 
ing, I  discovered,  incidentally,  that  the  mill  will  do  more  work 


156  LETTER  XVIII. 


between  sunset  and  dawn,  than  in  the  same  number  of  hours 
by  daylight.  Without  reasoning  upon  it,  the  miller  knows  prac- 
tically that  streams  run  faster  at  night.  The  increased  heaviness 
of  the  air,  and  the  withdrawal  of  the  attraction  of  light,  are  pro- 
bably the  causes.  But  there  is  a  neat  tail  for  a  sonnet  coiled  up 
in  the  fact,  and  you  may  blow  it  with  a  long  breath  to  Tom  Moore. 
Many  thanks  for  your  offer  of  shopping  for  us,  but  you  do  in- 
justice to  the  "  cash  stores"  of  Owego  when  you  presume  that 
there  is  anything  short  of  "  a  hair  off  the  great  Cham's  beard," 
which  is  not  found  in  their  inventory.  By  the  way,  there  is  one 
article  of  which  I  feel  the  daily  want,  and,  as  you  live  among  au- 
thors who  procure  them  ready  made  for  ballads  and  romances, 
perhaps  you  can  send  me  one  before  the  canal  freezes.  I  mean 
a  venerable  hermit,  who,  having  passed  through  all  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  human  life,  shall  have  nothing  earthly  to  occupy  him 
but  to  live  in  the  woods  and  dispense  wisdom,  gratis,  to  all  com- 
ers. I  don't  know  whether,  in  your  giddy  town  vocations,  it  has 
ever  occurred  to  you  to  turn  short  upon  yourself,  in  the  midst  of 
some  grave  but  insignificant  routine,  and  inquire  (of  the  gentle- 
man within)  whether  this  is  the  fulfillment  of  your  destiny ; 
whether  these  little  nothings  are  the  links,  near  your  eye,  of  the 
great  chain,  which  you  fancy,  in  your  elevated  hours,  connects 
you  with  something  kindred  to  the;  stars.  It  is  oftenest  in  fine 
weather  that  I  thus  step  out  of  myself,  and,  retiring  a  little  space, 
borrow  the  eyes  of  my  better  angel,  and  take  a  look  at  the  indi- 
vidual I  have  vacated.  You  shall  see  him  yourself,  dear  Doc- 
tor, with  three  strokes  of  the  pen  ;  and,  in  giving  your  judgment 
of  the  dignity  of  his  pursuits,  perform  the  office  to  which  I  des- 
tine the  hermit  above  bespoken 


PORTRAITS  FROM  A  BARN.  157 


It  is  not  the  stout  fellow,  with  the  black  London  hat,  some- 
what rusty,  who  stands  raking  away  cobs  from  the  barn-floor, 
though  the  hat  has  seen  worshipful  society,  (having  fallen  on 
those  blessed  days  when  hats  are  as  inseparable  from  the  wearer 
as  silk  stocking  or  culotte,)  and  sports  that  breadth  of  brim  by 
which  you  know  me  as  far  off  as  your  indigenous  omnibus. 
That's  Jem,  the  groom,  to  whom,  with  all  its  reminiscences,  the 
hat  is  but  a  tile.  Nor  is  it  the  half  sailor-looking,  world-worn, 
never-smiling  man,  who  is  plying  a  flail  upon  that  floor  of  corn, 
with  a  look  as  if  he  had  learned  the  stroke  with  a  cutlass,  though, 
in  his  ripped  and  shredded  upper  garment,  you  might  recognize 
the  frogged  and  velvet  redingote,  native  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix, 
which  has  fluttered  on  the  Symplegades,  and  flapped  the  dust 
of  the  Acropolis.  That  is  my  tenant  in  the  wood,  who,  having 
passed  his  youth  and  middle  age  with  little  content  in  a  more  re- 
sponsible sphere  of  life,  has  limited  his  wishes  to  solitude  and  a 
supply  of  the  wants  of  nature  ;  and,  though  quite  capable  of  tell- 
ing story  for  story  with  my  old  fellow  traveller,  probably  thinks 
of  it  only  to  wish  its  ravelled  frogs  were  horn  buttons,  and  its 
bursted  seams  less  penetrable  by  the  rain. 

And  a  third  person  is  one  of  my  neighbors',  who  can  see  nothing 
lone  without  showing  you  a  "  'cuter  way,"  and  who,  sitting  on 
the  sill  of  the  barn,  is  amusing  himself,  quite  of  his  own  accord, 
with  beheading,  cleaning,  and  picking  an  unfortunate  duck,  whose 
leg  was  accidentally  broken  by  the  flail.  His  voluntary  occupa- 
tion is  stimulated  by  neither  interest  nor  good  nature,  but  is 
simply  the  itching  to  be  doing  something,  which,  in  one  shape  or 
another,  belongs  to  every  genuine  Jonathan.  Near  him^  in  cow- 
hide boots,  frock  of  fustian,  and  broad-brimmed  sombrero  of 


158  LETTER  XVIII. 


coarse  straw,  stands,  breathing  from  a  bout  with  the  flail,  the  in- 
dividual from  whom  I  have  stepped  apart,  and  upon  whose 
morning's  worth  of  existence  you  shall  put  a  philosopher's  esti- 
mate. 

I  presume  my  three  hours'  labor  might  be  done  for  about 
three  shillings — my  mind,  meantime,  being  entirely  occupied  with 
what  I  was  about,  calculating  the  number  of  bushels  to  the  acre, 
the  price  of  corn  farther  down  the  river,  and,  between  whiles,  dis- 
cussing the  merits  of  a  patent  corn-sheller,  which  we  had  aban- 
doned for  the  more  laborious  but  quicker  process  of  thrashing. 

"  Purty  'cute  tool !"  says  my  neighbor,  giving  the  machine 
a  look  out  of  the  corner  of  his  yellow  eye,  "  but  teoo  slow ! 
Com  ought  to  come  off  ravin'  distracted.  'Taint  no  use  to  eat  it 
up  in  labor.  Where  was  that  got  out  ?" 

"  'Twas  invented  in  Albany,  I  rather  think." 

"  Wai,  I  guess  t'want.  It's  a  Varmount  notion.  Rot  them 
Green  Mounting-eers !  they're  a  spiling  the  country.  People 
won't  work  when  them  things  lay  round.  Have  you  heern  of  a 
machine  for  buttoning  your  gallowses  behind  ?" 

"  No,  I  have  not." 

"  Wai,  I've  been  expecting  on't.  There  aint  no  other  hard 
work  they  haint  economized.  Is  them  your  hogs  in  the  gard- 
ing?" 

Three  vast  porkers  had  nosed  open  the  gate,  during  the  dis- 
cussion, and  were  making  the  best  of  their  opportunities.  After 
a  vigorous  chase,  the  latch  was  closed  upon  them  securely,  and 
my  neighbor  resumed  his  duck. 

K  Is  there  no  way  of  forcing  people  to  keep  those  brutes  at 
nome?"  I  asked  of  my  silent  tenant. 


RIDDANCE  OF  NUISANCE.  159 


"  Yes,  sir.  The  law  provides  that  you  may  shut  them  up,  and 
send  word  to  the  owners  to  come  and  take  them  away." 

"  Wai !  It's  a  chore,  if  you  ever  tried  it,  to  catch  a  hog  if  he's 
middlin'  spry,  and  when  he's  cotch,  you've  got  to  feed  him,  by 
law,  till  he's  sent  for ;  and  it  don't  pay,  mister." 

"  But  you  can  charge  for  the  feed,"  says  the  other. 

"  Pesky  little,  I  tell  ye.  Pig  fodder  's  cheap,  and  they  don't 
pay  you  for  carrying  on't  to  'em,  nor  for  catching  the  critters. 
It's  a  losin'  consarn." 

"  Suppose  I  shoot  them." 

"  Sartin  you  can.  The  owner  '11  put  his  vally  on  it,  and  you 
can  have  as  much  pork  at  that  price  as  '11  fill  your  barn.  The 
hull  neighb'rhood  '11  drive  their  hogs  into  your  garding." 

I  saw  that  my  neighbor  had  looked  at  the  matter  all  round ; 
but  I  was  sure,  from  his  manner,  that  he  could,  if  encouraged, 
suggest  a  remedy  for  the  nuisance. 

"  I  would  give  a  bushel  of  that  handsome  corn,"  said  I,  "to 
know  how  to  be  rid  of  them." 

"  Be  so  perlite  as  to  measure  it  out,  mister,  while  I  head  in 
that  hog.  I'll  show  you  how  the  deacon  kept  'em  out  of  the 
new  buryin'  ground  while  the  fence  was  buildin'." 

He  laid  down  the  duck,  which  was,  by  this  time,  fairly  picked, 
and  stood  a  moment  looking  at  the  three  hogs,  now  leisurely  turn- 
ing up  the  grass  at  the  roadside.  For  a  reason  which  I  did  not  at 
the  moment  conceive,  he  presently  made  a  dash  at  the  thinnest 
of  the  three,  a  hungry -looking  brute,  built  with  an  approach  to 
the  greyhound,  and  missed  catching  him  by  an  arm's  length. 
Unluckily  for  the  hog,  however,  the  road  was  lined  with  crooked 
rail  fence,  which  deceived  him  with  constant  promise  of  escape  by 


160  LETTER  XVIII. 


a  short  turn  ;  and,  by  a  skillful  heading  off,  and  a  most  industrious 
chase  of  some  fifteen  minutes,  he  was  cornered  at  last,  and  se- 
cured by  the  hind  leg. 

"A  hog,"  said  he,  dragging  him  along  with  the  greatest  gravi- 
ty, "  hates  a  straight  line  like  pizen.  If  they'd  run  right  in  eend, 
you'd  never  catch  'em  in  natur.  Like  some  folks,  aint  it  ?  Boy, 
fetch  me  a  skrimmage  of  them  whole  corn." 

He  drove  the  hog  before  him,  wheelbarrow  fashion,  into  an 
open  cow-pen,  and  put  up  the  bars.  The  boy  (his  son,  who  had 
been  waiting  for  him  outside  the  barn)  brought  him  a  few  ears 
of  ripe  corn,  and,  as  soon  as  the  hog  had  recovered  his  breath  a 
little,  he  threw  them  into  the  pen,  and  drew  out  a  knife  from  his 
pocket,  which  he  whetted  on  the  rail  before  him. 

"  Now,"  said  he,  as  the  voracious  animal,  unaccustomed 
to  such  appetizing  food,  seized  ravenously  on  the  corn,  "  it's 
according  to  law  to  take  up  a  stray  hog  and  feed  him, 
aint  it  ?" 

"  Certainly." 

By  this  time  the  greedy  creature  began  to  show  symptoms  of 
choking,  and  my  friend's  design  became  clearer. 

"  And  it's  Christian  charity,"  he  continued,  letting  down  the 
bars,  and  stepping  in  as  the  hog  rolled  upon  his  side,  "  not  to  let 
your  neighbor  lose  his  critters  by  choking,  if  you  can  kill  'em  in 
time  to  save  their  meat,  ain't  it  ?" 

"  Certainly." 

'*  Wai!"  said  he,  cutting  the  animal's  throat,  "you  can  send 
word  to  the  owner  of  that  pork  to  come  and  take  it  away,  and,  if 
he  don't  like  to  salt  down  at  a  minute's  notice,  he'll  keep  the  rest 
at  hum,  and  pay  you  for  your  corn.  And  that's  the  way  the 


WEATHER,  AS  TO  DIGNITY.  161 


deacon  sarved  my  hogs,  darn  his  long  face,  and  I  eat  pork  till  I 
was  sick  of  the  sight  on't." 

A  bushel  of  corn  being  worth  about  six  shillings,  I  had  paid 
twice  the  worth  of  my  own  morning's  work  for  this  very  Yankee 
expedient.  My  neighbor  borrowed  a  bag,  shouldered  his  grist, 
and  trudged  off  to  the  mill ;  and,  relinquishing  my  flail  to  Jem,  I 
leaned  over  the  fence  in  the  warm  autumn  sunshine,  and,  with  my 
eyes  on  the  swift,  yet  still  bosom  of  the  river  below,  fell  to  won- 
dering, as  I  said  before,  whether  the  hour,  of  which  I  have  given 
you  a  picture,  was  a  fitting  link  in  a  wise  man's  destiny.  The 
day  was  one  to  give  birth  to  great  resolves,  bright,  elastic,  and 
genial ;  and  the  leafless  trees,  so  lorn  and  comfortless  in  cloudier 
times,  seemed  lifting  into  the  sky  with  heroic  endurance,  while 
the  swollen  Owaga,  flowing  on  with  twice  the  summer's  depth, 
semed  gathering  soul  to  defy  the  fetters  of  winter.  There 
was  something  inharmonious  with  little  pursuits,  in  everything  I 
could  see.  Such  air  and  sunshine,  I  thought,  should  overtake 
one  in  some  labor  of  philanthropy,  in  some  sacrifice  for  friend  or 
country,  in  the  glow  of  some  noble  composition,  or,  if  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  physical  energy,  at  least  to  some  large  profit.  Yet  a 
few  shillings  expressed  the  whole  result  of  my  morning's  em- 
ployment, and  the  society  by  which  my  thoughts  had  been 
colored  were  such  as  I  have  described.  Still  this  is  <<  farming," 
and  so  lived  Cincinnatus. 

Now,  dear  Doctor,  you  can  be  grand  among  your  gallipots,  and 
if  your  eye  turns  in  upon  yourself,  you  may  reflect  complacently 
on  the  almost  sublime  ends  of  the  art  of  healing ;  but  resolve  me, 
if  you  please,  my  little  problem.  What  state  of  the  weathei 
should  I  live  up  to  ?  My  present  avocations,  well  enough  in  a 


162  LETTER  XVII. 


gray  day,  or  a  rainy,  or  a  raw,  are  quite  put  out  of  countenance 
by  a  blue  sky  and  a  genial  sun.  If  it  were  always  like  to-day,  I 
should  be  obliged  to  seek  distinction,  in  some  way.  There  would 
be  no  looking  such  a  sky  in  the  face  three  days  consecutively, 
busied  always  with  pigs  and  corn.  You  see  the  use  of  a  hermit 
fo  settle  such  points.  But  adieu,  vrhvte  I  have  room  to  write  it. 


LETTER  XIX. 

DEAR  DOCTOR  :  This,  though  a  good  working- day  by  the  alma- 
nac, is,  with  me,  one  of  those  mental  Sundays,  when  imagination, 
memory,  causality,  and  the  other  'prentices  of  the  workshop,  seem 
bent  upon  a  holiday.  There  is  no  visible  reason  why  I  should 
not  "  toil  and  spin."  My  breakfast  sits  lightly  and  the  sun  lies 
warm  upon  my  slipshod  feet ;  Foible,  my  dog,  waits  with  pa- 
tience the  hour  to  go  to  the  woods,  and  every  wheel  in  the  com- 
plicated machinery  of  the  little  world  I  govern  is  right  by  the 
clock ;  yet  here  have  I  sat  two  golden  hours,  unprofitably  idle. 
And  here  must  I  sit,  busy  or  idle,  till  the  village  bell  come  over 
the  fields  with  noon,  for,  in  humble  imitation  of  Alfieri,  who  had 
himself  chained  to  his  chair  to  conquer  his  truant  humor,  I 
am  a  prisoner  to  dressing-gown  and  good  resolution  till  blessed 
"  twelve"  lets  me  out  with  the  school-boys.  What  to  do  with 
this  recusant  pen,  chained  to  my  fingers  like  the  oar  to  the  galley- 
slave  ? 

"  Boz"  has  commenced  the  harvest  of  his  laurels,  but  1  wish 
he  would  suddenly  drop  his  cognito  and  see  the  country  under 
some  other  name.  His  swallow,  I  think,  is  not  large,  and,  if  a 


164  LETTER  XIX. 


week  of  our  whole-hog  regimen  of  compliment  do  not  gorge  him, 
it  will  be  that  he  wears  a  vicarious  stomach  in  his  doublet.  Quite 
as  highly  spiced  would  be  the  tributes  he  might  pick  up  by  the 
wayside — tributes  without  eyes  or  ears,  exacting  neither  blushes 
nor  disclaimers,  neither  toast  nor  speech  responsive.  I  really 
think,  that,  making  the  round  of  our  country  under  the  happy 
name  of  Smith,  and  lifting  his  mask  here  and  there  to  those  who 
struck  his  fancy,  Dickens  might  leave  us  with  a  sense  deeper  and 
sweeter  of  our  love  for  his  genius,  than  he  is  likely  to  gather  with 
the  vexed  brains  and  morning  headaches  of  his  ovation.  Every- 
body knows  him.  Everybody  loves  him.  And,  faith !  I  don't 
see  why  he  should  be  much  pitied,  after  all !  A  man  might  bear 
such  popularity  as  his,  whatever  "  questionable  shape"  it  could 
assume.  At  his  age  to  "  put  a  girdle  round  the  earth"  as  broad 
as  the  language  in  which  he  writes,  and,  following  it  three  thousand 
miles  west,  to  find  it  embroidered  with  a  great  nation  in  alto  re- 
lievo— (raised  to  meet  him) — this  is  a  lifetime  renown  to  make 
Milton  stare  back  over  the  walls  of  Paradise — to  make  Dante 
swear  by  his  own  Inferno  that  he  was  born  six  centuries  too  soon ! 
It  is  Charles  Dickens's  due,  no  doubt,  and  the  payment  of  these 
airy  dues,  prompt  and  honest  as  it  is,  would  come  with  a  better 
grace  if  a  per-centage  of  the  vast  sale  of  his  works  were  not  also 
Charles  Dickens's  due !  If  State  debts  could  be  paid  in  compli- 
mentary dinners,  however,  "Mississippi"  and  "Governor  Mc- 
Nutt"  might  not  be  by- words  on  the  London  Exchange.  We  are 
a  famous  nation  for  paying — compliments !  I  wish  to  God  we 
were  not  as  famous  for  robbing  authors. 

May  Henry  Clay  (whom  God  bless !)  take  at  the    Jood  this 


DICKENS.  165 


popular  enthusiasm  for  a  pillaged  author,  and  lead  it  on  to  the 

amendment  of  our  law  of  copyright. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

You  are  to  understand  this  line  of  stars  as  expressing  a  domes- 
tic eclipse  of  three  weeks,  during  which  I  have  made  my  appari- 
tion in  most  of  our  principal  cities,  seen  the  "  BozBall,"  and  aired 
my  holiday  clothes  and  my  holiday  manners.  It  was  partly  busi- 
ness that  took  me  off  so  suddenly,  and  partly  JBoz-iuess,  I  am  free 
to  confess.  I  wished  to  see  this  most  loveable  of  authors  wearing 
his  bays,  and  I  felt  my  heart  with  the  country — discreet  or  indis- 
creet in  its  rush  to  do  him  honor.  So  over  the  hills  I  jolted — 
three  days  and  nights  in  spring-less  lumber  wagons,  (substitutes 
for  coaches  in  the  muddy  months,)  and,  well  qualified  for  any 
stand-up  amusement,  I  joined  the  great  multitude  at  the  Park. 
With  the  cobwebs  newly  brushed  out  of  my  eyes,  I  was,  of  course, 
susceptible  to  all  the  illusions  of  lights,  loveliness  and  music,  and 
to  me  it  was  very  enchanting  work.  Dickens's  joyous  counte- 
nance and  the  bonhomie  and  simplicity  of  his  manners  height- 
ened, I  thought,  even  the  expectant  enthusiasm  with  which  his 
admirers  had  come  to  the  ball,  and  it  is  enough  to  say  he  lost  no 
hearts  that  night — for  all  changes  to  him,  in  the  tenure  of  that 
commodity,  must  be  losses.  He  seemed,  himself,  in  all  honesty 
of  feeling,  delighted  with  his  reception — sans  arriere  pensee,  if  I 
may  be-French  you  a  little.  It  was  an  anomaly  to  see  a  Dives 
in  literature — a  man  of  great  genius  receiving  his  "  good  things 
.n  this  life,"  and  it  was  an  anomaly  to  see  a  man  of  deep  thoughts 
wearing  "his  heart  on  his  sleeve,"  like  a  merry  school-boy.  He 
reflected  everybody's  smile — as  gaily  unembarrassed  among  the 
loving  looks  and  bright  eyes  as  a  bird  in  a  garden.  There  was  a 


:66  LETTER  XIX. 


delicate  line  to  hit,  between  reserve  and  condescens.on,  between 
embarrassment  and  insensibility — a  difficult  part  to  play,  alto- 
gether— and  Boz  was  made  for  it.  He  is  what  Balzac  calls  un 
expansif — with  good  humor  enough,  and  address,  and  spirit,  suf- 
ficiently prompt  and  mercurial,  to  spread  himself  over  as  much 
of  the  world  as  can  get  near  him,  bodily.  "Popular"  is  a  mis- 
used word,  but,  in  its  best  sense,  Dickens  is  popular — popular  hi 
his  boots  as  in  his  books,  the  right  mind  for  the  people  and  the 
right  man  for  the  people — rind  and  core  of  the  same  clear  ripe- 
ness and  sweetness.  The  very  young  ladies  have  been  somewhat 
disappointed  in  his  beauty,  (as  they  would  be,  no  doubt,  in  the 
Apollo's,  if  that  gentleman  were  off  his  pedestal  and  walking 
about,  dressed  like  Mr.  Dickens,)  but  I  do  not  believe  one  has 
seen  him  without  loving  him.  He  is  exempt  from  the  disenchant- 
ment common  and  fatal  to  most  "idols  taking  a  walk." 

"  But  tell  us  something  about  the  ball,"  quoth  you.  Truly 
there  is  little  left  to  tell  after  the  morning  papers  have  had  their 
will  of  it.  There  is  always,  at  every  great  ball  I  ever  heard  of, 
one  complete  marvel  in  the  shape  of  a  girl  of  sixteen,  of  un- 
known coinage,  but  virgin  gold — the  cynosure  of  all  eyes ;  and 
such  a  one  I  spent  my  moment  in  watching,  paying,  to  that  extent, 
my  willing  tribute  to  her  beauty.  She  had  an  old-fashioned  face, 
moulded  after  Stuart  Newton's  ideal,  with  nothing  in  it,  except 
the  complexion,  which  fifty  years  could  no  more  than  mellow. 
I  should  like  to  know  the  race  of  that  girl — I  should  like  to 
know  by  what  fathering  and  mothering  such  features,  and  frame, 
and  countenance  are  brought  about.  Faultlessly  dressed,  grace- 
ful, dignified,  and  so  beautiful — and  dancing  only  with  men 
whom  nobody  knew,  and  who  had,  (affinities  governing,)  no  right 


MRS.  DICKENS.  167 


on  earth  to  know  her — it  was  a  precious  traverse  altogether.  I 
so  far  overstepped  by  usual  let-slide  philosophy  as  to  nudge  a 
very  earnest  looker-on,  and  beg  pardon  for  asking  the  lady's 
name,  but,  without  removing  his  eyes  from  the  little  bright  teeth 
just  then  disclosing  with  a  smile,  he  expressed  a  wish  to  be  in- 
formed on  the  subject  himself — phrasing  his  reply,  however,  with 
more  emphasis  than  piety. 

A  hint  from  one  of  the  managers  that  a  certain  small  curtain 
near  the  stage  box,  was  the  introitus  to  champagne  and  oysters, 
coupled  (the  hint)  with  the  agreeable  request  that  I  would -fol- 
low thither  in  the  suite  of  Mrs.  Dickens,  drew  me  out  of  the 
charmed  circle  of  the  incognita,  and  I  saw  her  no  more. 

As  to  any  other  of  the  "  abouts"  of  the  ball,  my  dear  friend, 
I  fear  I  cannot  minister  to  your  aristocratic  taste,  for,  in  all  mixed 
societies,  I  ply  among  the  plebeians — preferring  a  rude  novelty  to 
polished  platitude.  Your  friends  were  all  there  (I  heard)  in  the 
boxes.  I  was  on  the  floor.  Not  dancing — for,  "  at  my  time  of 
life,"  etc.,  etc. — but  being  amused — studying  the  nice  line  of 
manners  by  the  departures  from  it — thanking  Heaven  for  degrees  hi 
all  things — seeking  what,  no  doubt,  gives  zest  to  an  angel's  errand 
on  earth,  change  from  the  stereotype  of  perfection.  I  must  say 
it  is  a  great  charm  in  vulgarians,  that,  as  Sir  Fopling  says,  "  you 
never  know  what  the  devil  they  may  do  next,"  while  au  contraire, 
the  dead  certainty  of  sequence,  under  all  circumstances,  in  polite 
society,  makes  of  it  the  very  treadmill  of  pleasure. 

I  have  not  told  you  "about"  Mrs.  Dickens,  however.  She 
was,  of  course,  the  star  of  the  evening,  second  in  brightness. 
Great  interest  was  felt  on  seeing  her,  the  world  being  aware  thafc 
she  had  loved  the  leading  star  of  the  night  without  knowing  his 


168  LETTER  XIX. 


"  place  in  the  heavens,"  and  wedded  him  before  his  rising.  And 
besides  this,  there  was  the  interest  felt  always  in  the  wife  of  a 
man  of  genius — priestess  as  she  is  to  the  bright  fire — nearest  and 
dearest  to  the  wondrous  heart  which  supplies  to  his  imaginations 
all  their  reality — model  as  she  muse  be  for  the  subtlest  delinea- 
tions of  pure  love,  the  truest  and  fairest  features  of  his  pictures 
of  woman.  She  has  risen  with  him,  she  and  her  children,  a 
cluster  of  stars  around  him,  and  the  world  is  perhaps  not  over- 
stepping the  limit  of  delicacy  in  bending,  on  the  whole  constella- 
tion, the  telescope  of  affectionate  curiosity.  Mrs.  Dickens  seemed 
to  me  a  woman  worthy  to  count  her  hours  by  Master  Humphrey's 
clock — appreciative,  to  the  extremest  nerve,  of  her  husband's 
genius,  and  feeling,  with  exquisite  sensibility,  the  virtuous  quality 
and  the  prodigal  overflowing  of  his  fame.  They  have  four  chil- 
dren. Dickens  showed  me  a  delicious  drawing  of  them  by  his 
friend  Maclise,  with  Grip  the  raven  perched  gravely  on  the  back 
of  the  chair  in  which  the  youngest  was  seated.  Separation  from 
these  seems  to  be  the  only  alloy  in  their  pleasure  among  us,  and 
I  fear  they  will  be  drawn  home  sooner  than  were  otherwise  best 
by  this  powerful  chain.  God  give  them  a  happy  reunion ! 

As  to  other  and  more  general  "  Boziana,"  are  they  not  written 
hi  the  Dailies  and  glorified  in  the  "  Extras  ?"  It  would  interest 
you,  perhaps,  could  I  describe  the  tribute  of  some  literary 
milliner,  which  came  in  while  I  was  calling,  on  the  day  of  the 
ball — a  very  smart  bonnet  with  a  very  smart  plume,  for  Mrs. 
Dickens ;  but  for  that,  and  for  the  anonymous  bouquets  which 
entered,  like  a  well-timed  floral  procession,  one  every  half  hour, 
you  must  draw  on  your  imagination.  To  my  thinking,  the 
milliner's  tribute  was  very  national,  and  quite  as  well  worth 


SPEED  OF  TRAVEL.  169 


Dickens's  thanks  as  the  diamond  snuff-boxes  which  have  conveyed 
to  him  the  homage  of  nobility. 

I  should  have  something  to  tell  you  of  the  Dickens  dinner, 
had  I  been  there.  But  the  obscurest  diner-out,  in  these  days,  is 
not  safe  from  the  indiscretion  of  friends  who  have  sentences  to 
round  off,  and  the  calling  on  a  hen  for  an  egg,  while  she  stands 
on  the  fence,  would  seem  to  me  reasonable  in  comparison  with 
asking  for  my  sentiments  to  be  delivered  on  my  legs.  However 
my  progeny  may  swim  or  fly,  I  am  a  barn-door  fowl,  and  must 
have  a  quiet  incubation.  So,  the  morning  after  the  ball,  I  flitted 
like  a  ghost  before  cock-crowing — content  to  let  Mathews  and 
Duer,  and  others  more  "  to  the  manner  born,"  accomplish  their 
delivery  in  what  posture  it  pleased  God.  These  gentlemen,  by 
the  way,  threw  the  whole  force  of  their  eloquence  into  the  cause 
of  copyright,  and  for  that  they  deserve  the  thanks  of  authors, 
and  they  have  mine.  The  question  is  one  of  such  simple  justice 
that  it  only  needs,  like  the  "  boots  of  Boss  Richards,"  to  be 
"kept  before  the  people."  Author-land  is  the  desecrated  Holy- 
land  of  our  time,  and  the  crusade  for  its  recovery  from  degrada- 
tion is  now  afoot — Cooper,  "on  his  own  hook,"  doing  noble 
service. 

Let  railroads  be  glorified  !  The  boy,  longing  for  seven-league 
boots — the  frost-ridden  yearnings  to  up  wing  and  speed  south- 
erly with  the  birds — may  be  satisfied  now.  I  found  friends  in  the 
cars,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  been  translated  from  New 
York  to  Washington  in  a  morning  call.  A  glance  at  a  newspa- 
per, a  little  chat  about  Dickens,  an  exchange  of  news  and  hap- 
penings, a  glance  at  Jersey  and  Maryland  and  the  pair  of  dark 
eyes  in  the  corner,  and  lo !  the  Capitol !  Quanta  mutatus  ab 

VOL.  i.  8 


170  -   LETTER  XIX. 


stage-coach !  And  changed  too  are  the  road-sideries !  (Mayn't 
one  make  a  word,  pray  ?)  The  once  clammy-banistered  and  be- 
niggered  hotel  in  Philadelphia  (the  "  United  States")  is  now  like 
the  union  of  an  English  club  with  an  English  country-house — 
clean  as  quakerism,  tastefully  appointed,  vigilantly  served,  and  no 
less  elegant  than  comfortable.  Never  before  have  I  found  a 
hotel  in  Philadelphia  which  was  a  fair  exponent  of  that  refined 
city.  Then  Barnum's  in  Baltimore  has  "  cast  its  slough,"  and  is 
florescent  in  elegancies,  (a  shade  flowery  too  in  its  bills,)  and 
altogether  it  is  easier  than  it  used  to  be,  (to  others  besides  "  rising 
young  men,")  to  get  to  Washington.  Here,  to  be  sure,  in  the 
matter  of  provender,  you  perceive  the  difference  in  your  latitude. 
"Point  Comfort"  is  farther  south.  But  Washington  is  a  great 
place  for  "  steering  wide,"  and  there  is  enough  to  enjoy  in  its 
troubled  waters,  particularly  for  those  who  know  the  value  of 
"  favoring  Gales." 

It  is  all  hack-ing  at  Washington,  so  I  hack'd  up  to  the  Capitol, 
(Morris  merely  says,  "  thou  shalt  not  hack  it  down,")  and  made 
straight  for  Greenough's  statue.  Ye  gods  !  who  is  his  enemy  ? 
Why  is  the  statue  not  covered,  till  a  light  is  found  for  it  ?  Why 
are  the  masons  at  work,  building  it  up  a  second  time  where  it 
stands,  when  the  shadow  of  the  brows  covers  the  whole  face, 
and  the  shadows  of  the  chest  are  so  misplaced  that  the  abdomen 
looks  contracted  like  that  of  a  man  in  pain.  And  so  of  the  rest. 
It  is  all  perverted — all  seen  to  disadvantage — and  yet  thousands 
of  people  have  flocked  to  see  it,  and  (not  as  in  Italy,  where  the 
error  of  its  position  would  be  at  once  understood  and  allowed 
for)  every  spectator  goes  away  with  an  uneasy  doubt  of  its  effect 
— an  unexplained  dissatisfaction  with  the  statue.  Force  your 


3REENC  UGH  S  WASHINGTON. 


eyes  through  the  darkness — generalize  the  details  by  a  vigorous 
effort  of  imagination,  and  you  can  see,  afar  off,  the  grand  design 
of  the  artist,  and  form  some  idea  of  what  it  would  be,  well 
lighted.  Greenough  should  be  here — he  should  have  been  here 
when  it  was  first  posed — and,  till  he  come,  it  should  only  be 
exhibited  by  torch-light.  My  own  impression  is,  that  it  will 
never  be  properly  lighted  in  the  Rotunda,  unless  the  dome  is 
pierced ;  and,  light  it  as  you  will,  while  it  stands  in  such  close  con- 
trast with  other  works  of  art  of  the  size  of  life,  it  will  be  less  ef- 
fective there  than  elsewhere.  Standing  in  the  place  of  the  col- 
umn of  naval  trophies  in  the  front  of  the  Capitol,  with  a  lofty 
dome  built  over  it,  it  would  be  seen  by  those  ascending  to  the 
House,  in  all  its  grandeur.  This  only  by  way  of  random  sugges- 
tion, however.  I  am  no  authority  in  such  matters.  Greenough's 
genius  is  one  which  requires  no  delicacy  in  the  handling,  and  the 
suggestion  is  not  to  him.  He  can  put  his  statue  where  it  will 
exact  from  all  beholders  its  due  of  admiration ;  but,  loving  his 
genius  as  I  do,  loving  the  man,  as  every  one  does  who  knows  his 
great  and  sweet  qualities,  I  would  express  here  the  impatience  I 
feel  at  the  inevitable  though  temporary  misappreciation  of  his 
work. 

Turning  on  my  heel  in  a  very  ill  humor,  I  found  myself  oppo- 
site Chapman's  Baptism  of  Pocahontas.  I  had  read  a  score  of 
criticisms  on  this  painting,  some  favorable  and  some  not,  and  from 
the  whole  had  made  up  my  mind  to  see  a  very  different  quality 
of  picture.  In  my  opinion  no  writer  has  done  justice  to  it,  or 
rathei ,  the  upshot  of  what  criticism  it  has  elicited  gives  altogether 
an  erroneous  impression  as  to  Mr.  Chapman's  success.  It  is  a 
peculiar  picture,  conceived  and  executed  in  a  severe  style  of  art, 


172  LETTER  XIX. 


and  is  not  such  a  miracle  as  to  be  incapable  of  exception  or  criti- 
cism ;  but  it  is  a  noble  design,  exquisitely  colored,  and  the  whole 
effect  is  at  once  to  transcend  and  supplant  the  spectator's  previous 
conception  of  the  scene  portrayed.  As  one  of  the  republican 
sovereigns  by  whose  order  it  was  painted, '  I  pronounce  myself 
entirely  satisfied,  and  wish  we  may  get  as  much  honor  for  our 
money  on  the  other  panels. 

I  passed  an  hour  or  two  in  the  Gallery  of  the  House,  renewing 
my  eyesight  acquaintance  with  some  of  the  nation's  counsellors, 
and  was  not  a  little  amused  by  a  group  of  lookers-on  close  by, 
and  their  standard  of  legislative  distinction.  They  were  pointing 
out  to  each  other  the  different  members,  with  the  one  commen- 
tary, "  he's  pluck,"  or,  "  he  isn't  pluck,"  and,  positively,  in  half 
an  hour's  calling  over  of  great  names  to  which  I  listened,  there 
was  passed  on  them  no  other  comment.  To  be  "  pluck,"  it  would 
seem,  is  the  great  claim  to  the  digito  monstrari  at  Washington — 
though,  (if  one  may  "  tell  Priam  so,")  it  would  be  a  better  read- 
ing in  the  sense  of  "pluck  up  drowned  honor  by  the  locks." 
Mr.  Wise,  by  the  way,  in  a  speech  most  eloquently  delivered 
that  morning,  went  into  a  vindication  of  the  irregularities  of  the 
House,  and  satisfied  me,  not  that  he  was  right  in  his  argument, 
but  that  he  was  a  natural  orator  of  a  high  order.  I  thought  few 
at  Washington  seemed  quite  aware  of  the  feeling,  at  the  outer 
end  of  the  radius,  touching  the  "  gentle  amenities"  which  have 
distinguished  the  last  two  sessions  of  Congress. 

I  saw  the  President,  and  found  .him  a  more  benevolent  and 
younger  and  better  looking  man  than  any  of  his  portraits.  I  saw, 
at  a  distance  only,  our  peerless  "  Harry,"  "  built  round"  with 
noble  dignity,  expressing  in  his  lofty  presence  his  country's 


PHILADELPHIA  173 

estimate  of  his  qualities.  Clay  looks  the  President — propheti- 
cally, I  hope  and  trust.  And  all  the  people  say  Amen! — at 
least  all  those  with  whom  I  have  chanced  to  converse  on  the 
subject. 

After  two  days  of  the  pendulum  life  at  Washington,  going  and 
coming  between  the  White  House  and  the  Capitol,  I  turned  once 
more  toward  the  teetotal  zone,  ("temperate"  will  scarce  express 
it,)  and  was  in  Philadelphia  with  a  magician's  "presto!"  For 
the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  saw  a  city  with  a  look  of  depression. 
Commonly  a  public  distress  has  no  outward  countenance.  The 
houses  and  equipages,  the  children  and  the  shop-windows,  the 
very  sufferers  themselves  when  abroad,  wear  the  habitual  aspect 
of  occupation  and  prosperity.  Not  so  now  in  Philadelphia.  Tt 
is  a  city  of  troubled  brows  and  anxious  lips  ;  and  you  have  scarce 
walked  an  hour  in  the  street  before  you  become  infected  with 
the  depressed  atmosphere,  and  long  to  be  away.  You  see  why  I 
do  not  play  the  petit  courier  des  dames,  as  my  country  friends 
exact  of  me  in  my  travels.  I  used  to  send  you  the  fashions,  after 
a  walk  in  Chestnut  Street.  No  place  like  it  for  an  affiche  des 
modes  !  But,  though  a  fine  day,  and  the  pavement  as  tempting 
as  the  bank  of  the  Arno  in  April,  not  a  petticoat  did  I  see  abroad 
with  which  a  brown  paper  parcel  would  have  been  an  incongruity. 
For  the  fashions,  indeed,  though  I  was  at  a  singularly  brilliant 
party  (concert  and  ball)  given  to  Dickens  the  night  after,  in  New 
York,  I  saw  nothing  but  anarchy.  The  plump  wear  the  tight 
sleeve — becoming  to  plumptitude.  The  thin  wear  the  gigot  and 
its  varieties — becoming  to  thinliness.  Yes — one  "  new  wrinkle  !" 
Ears  have  been  put  out  of  fashion  by  some  one  who  had  reasons  for 
concealing  hers,  and  the  hair  is  worn  in  a  bandage,  smooth  down 


174  LETTER  XIX. 


from  the  apex  of  the  forehead  over  temples  and  ears,  and  gath- 
ered in  a  knot,  well  under  the  bump  of  philoprogenitiveness.     It 
is  pretty — on  a  pretty  woman — as  what  is  not  ? 
And  now,  having  told  you  all  I  know  of 

—  "  the  violets, 
That  strew  the  green  lap  of  the  new-come  Spring," 

(violets,  in  the  city,  meaning  news  and  fashions,)  I  must  lay  aside 
this  abominable  pen,  mended  once  too  often  for  the  purity  of  my 
scriveniflg  finger,  and  dismiss  my  letter  to  the  post.  Adieu. 


LETTER   XX. 

DEAR  DOCTOR  :  You  want  a  letter  upon  landscape  gardening — 
apropos  of  your  delight  in  Downing's  elegant  and  tempting  book 
on  Rural  Architecture.  It  is  a  pleasant  subject  to  expand  upon, 
and  I  am  not  surprised  that  men,  sitting  amid  hot  editorials  in  a 
city,  (the  month  of  July,)  find  a  certain  facility  in  creating  woods 
and  walks,  planting  hedges  and  building  conservatories.  So  may 
the  brain  be  refreshed,  I  well  know,  even  with  the  smell  of  print- 
ing ink  in  the  nostrils.  But  landscape  gardening,  as  within  the 
reach  of  the  small  farmer  people,  is  quite  another  thing,  and  to 
be  managed  (as  brain-gardening  need  not  be,  to  be  sure)  with 
economy  and  moderation.  Tell  us  in  the  quarterlies,  if  you  will, 
what  a  man  may  do  with  a  thousand  acres  and  plenty  of  money ; 
but  I  will  endeavor  to  show  what  may  be  done  with  fifty  acres 
and  a  spare  hour  in  the  evening — by  the  tasteful  farmer,  or  the 
tradesman  retired  on  small  means.  These  own  their  fifty  acres, 
(more  or  less,)  up  to  the  sky  and  down  to  the  bottom  of  their 
"  diggings,"  and  as  Nature  lets  the  tree  grow  and  the  flower  ex- 
pand for  a  man,  without  reference  to  his  account  at  the  bank, 
they  have  it  in  their  power  to  embellish,  and,  most  commonly, 
they  have  also  the  inclination.  Beginners,  however,  at  this,  as  at 


176  LETTER  XX. 


most  other  things,  are  at  the  mercy  of  injudicious  counsel,  and 
few  books  can  be  more  expensively  misapplied  than  the  treatises 
on  landscape  gardening. 

The  most  intense  and  sincere  lovers  of  the  country  are  citizens 
who  have  fled  to  rural  life  in  middle  age,  and  old  travellers  who 
are  wear^,  heart  and  foot,  and  long  for  shelter  and  rest.  Both 
these  classes  of  men  are  ornamental  in  their  tastes — the  first, 
because  the  country  it  his  passion,  heightened  by  abstinence ; 
and  the  latter,  because  he  remembers  the  secluded  and  sweet 
spots  he  has  crossed  in  travel,  and  yearns  for  something  that 
resembles  them,  of  his  own.  To  begin  at  the  beginning,  I  will 
suppose  such  a  man,  as  either  of  these,  in  search  of  land  to 
purchase  and  build  upon.  His  means  are  moderate. 

Leaving  the  climate  and  productiveness  of  soil  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, the  main  things  to  find  united  are  shade,  water,  and  inequality 
of  surface.  With  these  three  features  given  by  Nature,  any  spot 
may  be  made  beautiful,  and  at  very  little  cost ;  and,  fortunately 
for  purchasers  in  this  country,  most  land  is  valued  and  sold  with 
little  or  no  reference  to  these  or  other  capabilities  for  embellish- 
ment. Water,  in  a  country  so  laced  with  rivers,  is  easily  found. 
Yet  there  are  hints  worth  giving,  perhaps,  obvious  as  they  seem, 
even  in  the  selection  of  water.  A  small  and  rapid  river  is  prefer- 
able to  a  large  river  or  lake.  The  Hudson,  for  instance,  is  too 
broad  to  bridge,  and,  beautiful  as  the  sites  are  upon  its  banks, 
the  residents  have  but  one  egress  and  one  drive — the  country 
oehind  them.  If  they  could  cross  to  the  other  side,  and  radiate 
in  every  direction  in  their  evening  drives,  the  villas  on  that  noble 
river  would  be  trebled  in  value.  One  soon  tires  of  riding  up  and 
down  one  bank  of  a  river,  and,  without  a  taste  for  boating,  the 


SELECTION  OF  FARMS.  177 


«i,.iutiful  expanse  of  water  soon  becomes  an  irksome  barrier. 
Very  much  the  same  remark  is  true  of  the  borders  of  lakes,  with 
the  additional  objection,  that  there  is  no  variety  to  the  view.  A 
small,  bright  stream,  such  as  hundreds  of  nameless  ones  in  these 
beautiful  northern  States — spanned  by  bridges  at  every  half  mile, 
followed  always  by  the  roads  which  naturally  seek  the  level,  and 
winding  into  picturesque  surprises,  appearing  and  disappearing 
continually — is,  in  itself,  an  ever-renewing  poem,  crowded  with 
changeable  pictures,  and  every  day  tempting  you  to  follow  or 
trace  back  its  bright  current  Small  rivers,  again,  insure  to  a 
degree  the  other  two  requisites — shade  and  inequality  of  surface — 
the  interval  being  proportionately  narrow,  and,  backed  by  slopes 
and  alluvial  soil,  usually  producing  the  various  nut  and  maple 
trees,  which,  for  their  fruit  and  sap,  have  been  spared  by  the 
inexorable  axes  of  the  first  settlers.  If  there  is  any  land  in  the 
country,  the  price  of  which  is  raised  from  the  supposed  desirable- 
ness of  the  site,  it  is  upon  the  lakes  and  larger  rivers,  leaving  the 
smaller  rivers,  fortunately,  still  within  the  scale  of  the  people's 
means. 

One  more  word  as  to  the  selection  of  a  spot.  The  rivers  in  the 
United  States,  more  than  those  of  older  countries,  are  variable  in 
their  quantity  of  water.  The  banks  of  many  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque, present,  at  ihe  season  of  the  year  when  we  most  wish  it 
otherwise,  (in  the  sultry  heats  of  August  and  September,)  bared 
rocks  or  beds  of  ooze,  while  the  stream  runs  sluggishly  and 
uninvitingly  between.  Those  which  are  fed  principally  by  springs, 
however,  are  less  liable  to  the  effects  of  drought  than  those  which 
are  the  outlets  of  large  bodies  of  water ;  and,  indeed,  there  is 
great  difference  in  rivers  in  this  respect,  depending  on  the  degree 


178  LETTER  XX. 


in  which  their  courses  are  shaded,  and  other  causes.  It  will  be 
safest,  consequently,  to  select  a  site  in  August,  when  the  water 
is  at  the  lowest,  preferring,  of  course,  a  bold  and  high  bank  as  a 
protection  against  freshets  and  flood- wood.  The  remotest  chance 
of  a  war  with  water,  damming  against  wash  and  flood,  fills  an 
old  settler  with  economical  alarm. 

It  was  doubtless  a  "  small  chore"  for  the  deluge  to  heave  up 
a  mound  or  slope  a  bank,  but,  with  one  spade  at  a  dollar  a  day, 
the  moving  of  earth  is  a  discouraging  job ;  and,  in  selecting  a  place 
to  live,  it  is  well  to  be  apprised  what  diggings  may  become  neces- 
sary, and  how  your  hay  and  water,  wood,  visitors,  and  lumber 
generally,  are  to  come  and  go.  A  man's  first  fancy  is  commonly 
to  build  on  a  hill ;  but  as  he  lives  on,  year  after  year,  he  would 
like  his  house  lower  and  lower,  till,  if  the  fairies  had  done  it  for 
him  at  each  succeeding  wish,  he  would  trouble  them  at  last  to 
dig  his  cellar  at  the  bottom.  It  is  hard  mounting  a  hill  daily, 
with  tired  horses,  and  it  is  dangerous  driving  down  with  full- 
bellied  ones  from  the  stable-door,  and  your  friends  deduct,  from 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  you,  the  inconvenience  of  ascending  and 
descending.  The  view,  for  which  you  build  high,  you  soon  dis- 
cover is  not  daily  bread,  but  an  occasional  treat — more  worth,  as 
well  as  better  liked  for  the  walk  to  get  it,  and  (you  have  selected 
your  site,  of  course,  with  a  southern  exposure)  a  good  stiff  hill 
at  your  back,  nine  months  in  the  year,  saves  several  degrees  of 
the  thermometer,  and  sundry  chimney-tops,  barn-roofs,  and  other 
furniture  peripatetic  in  a  tempest.  Then  your  hill-road  washes  with 
the  rains,  and  needs  continual  mending,  and  the  dweller  on  the 
hill  needs  one  more  horse  and  two  more  oxen  than  the  dweller  in 
the  valley.  One  thing  more.  There  rises  a  night-mist,  (never 


VALUE  OF  NEIGHBORS.  179 


unwholesome  from  running  water,)  which  protects  fruit-trees  from 
frost,  to  a  certain  level  above  the  rivei,  at  certain  critical  seasons; 
and  so  end  the  reasons  for  building  low. 

I  am  supposing  all  along,  dear  reader,  that  you  have  had  no 
experience  of  country  life,  but  that,  sick  of  a  number  in  a  brick 
block,  or  (if  a  traveller)  weary  of  "  the  perpetual  flow  of  people," 
you  want  a  patch  of  the  globe's  surface  to  yourself,  and  room 
enough  to  scream,  let  off  champagne- corks,  or  throw  stones,  with- 
out disturbance  to  your  neighbor.  The  intense  yearning  for  this 
degree  of  liberty  has  led  some  seekers  after  the  pastoral  rather 
farther  into  the  wilderness  than  was  necessary  ;  and,  while  writing 
on  the  subject  of  a  selection  of  rural  sites,  it  is  worth  while,  per- 
haps, to  specify  the  desirable  degree  of  neighborhood. 

In  your  own  person,  probably,  you  do  not  combine  blacksmith, 
carpenter,  tinman,  grocer,  apothecary,  wet-nurse,  dry-nurse, 
washerwoman,  and  doctor.  Shoes  and  clothes  can  wait  your 
convenience  for  mending ;  but  the  little  necessities  supplied  by 
the  above  list  of  vocations  are  rather  imperative,  and  they  can 
only  be  ministered  to,  in  any  degree  of  comfortable  perfection,  by 
a  village  of  at  least  a  thousand  inhabitants.  Two  or  three  miles 
is  far  enough  to  send  your  horse  to  be  shod,  and  far  enough  to 
send  for  doctor  or  washerwoman,  and  half  the  distance  would  be 
better,  if  there  were  no  prospect  of  the  extension  of  the  village 
limits.  But  the  common  diameter  of  idle  boys'  rambles  is  a  mile 
out  of  the  village,  and  to  be  just  beyond  that  is  very  necessary, 
if  you  care  for  your  plums  and  apples.  The  church-bell  should 
be  within  hearing,  and  it  is  mellowed  deliciously  by  a  mik  or  two 
of  hill  and  dale,  and  your  wife  will  probably  belong  to  a  "  sewing- 
circle/'  to  which  it  is  very  much  for  her  health  to  walk,  especially 


180  LETTER  XX. 


if  the  horse  is  wanted  for  ploughing.     This  suggests  to  me  another 
point  which  I  had  nearly  overlooked. 

The  farmer  pretends  to  no  "  gentility ;"  I  may  be  permitted 
to  say,  therefore,  that  neighbors  are  a  luxury,  both  expensive  and 
inconvenient.  The  necessity  you  feel  for  society,  of  course,  will 
modify  very  much  the  just-stated  considerations  on  the  subject 
of  vicinage.  He  who  has  lived  only  in  towns,  or  passed  his  life 
(as  travellers  do)  only  as  a  receiver  of  hospitality,  is  little 
aware  of  the  difference  between  a  country  and  city  call,  or 
between  receiving  a  visit  and  paying  one.  In  town,  "  not  at 
home,"  in  any  of  its  shapes,  is  a  great  preserver  of  personal 
liberty,  and  gives  no  offence.  In  the  country  you  are  "  at  home," 
will-you,  nill-you.  As  a  stranger  paying  a  visit,  you  choose  the 
time  most  convenient  to  yourself,  and  abridge  the  call  at  pleasure. 
In  your  own  house,  the  visitor  may  find  you  at  a  very  inconve- 
nient hour,  stay  a  very  inconvenient  time,  and,  as  you  have  no 
liberty  to  deny  yourself  at  your  country  door,  it  may  (or  may 
not,  I  say,  according  to  your  taste)  be  a  considerable  evil.  This 
point  should  be  well  settled,  however,  before  you  determine  your 
distance  from  a  closely-settled  neighborhood ;  for  many  a  man 
would  rather  send  his  horse  two  miles  further  to  be  shod,  than 
live  within  the  convenience  of  "  sociable  neighbors."  A  resident 
in  a  city,  by-the-way,  (and  it  is  a  point  which  should  be  kept  in 
mind  by  the  retiring  metropolitan,)  has,  properly  speaking,  no 
neighbors.  He  has  friends,  chosen  or  made  by  similarity  of  pur- 
suit, congeniality  of  taste,  or  accident  which  might  have  been 
left  unimproved.  His  literal  neighbors  he  knows  by  name — if 
they  keep  a  brass  plate — but  they  are  contented  to  know  as  little 
of  him,  and  the  acquaintance  ends,  without  offence,  in  the  perusal 


ECONOMY  OF  SECLUSION.  181 


Of  the  name  and  number  on  the  door.     In  the  city,  you  pick  your 
friends.     In  the  country,  you  "  take  them  in  the  lump." 

True,  country  neighbors  are  almost  always  desirable  acquainv 
ances — simple  in  their  habits,  and  pure  in  their  morals  and 
conversation.  But  this  letter  is  addressed  to  men  retiring  from 
the  world,  who  look  forward  to  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of 
trees  and  fields,  who  expect  life  to  lie  filled  up  with  the  enjoy- 
ment of  dew  at  morn,  shade  at  noon,  and  the  glory  of  sunset  and 
starlight ;  and  who  consider  the  complete  repose  of  the  articulating 
organs,  and  release  from  oppressive  and  unmeaning  social  obser- 
vances, as  the  fruition  of  Paradise.  To  men  who  have  experience 
or  philosophy  enough  to  have  reduced  life  to  this,  I  should 
recommend  a  distance  of  five  miles  from  any  village  or  any  family 
with  grown-up  daughters.  In  this  practical  sermon,  I  may  be 
forgiven  for  remarking,  also,  that  this  degree  of  seclusion  doubles 
an  income,  (by  enabling  a  man  to  live  on  half  of  it,)  and  so,  free- 
ing the  mind  from  the  care  of  pelf,  removes  the  very  gravest  of 
the  obstacles  to  happiness.  I  refer  to  no  saving  which  infringes 
on  comfort.  The  housekeeper  who  caters  for  her  own  family  in 
an  unvisited  seclusion,  and  the  housekeeper  who  provides  for  her 
family  with  an  eye  to  the  possible  or  probable  interruption  of  ac- 
quaintances not  friends,  live  at  very  different  rates  ;  and  the 
latter  adds  one  dish  to  the  bounty  of  the  table,  perhaps,  but  two 
to  its  vanity.  Still  more  in  the  comfort  and  expensiveness  of 
dress.  The  natural  and  most  blissful  costume  of  man  in  summer, 
all  told,  is  shirt,  slippers,  and  pantaloons.  The  compulsory  arti- 
cles of  coat,  suspenders,  waistcoat,  and  cravat,  (gloves  would  be 
ridiculous,)  are  a  tribute  paid  to  the  chance  of  visitors,  as  is  also, 
probably,  some  dollars'  difference  in  the  quality  of  the  hat. 


182  LETTER  XX. 


I  say  nothing  of  the  comfort  of  a  bad  hat,  (one  you  can  sit 
upon,  or  water  your  horse  from,  or  bide  the  storm  in,  without 
remorse,)  nor  of  the  luxury  of  having  half  a  dozen,  which  you  do 
when  they  are  cheap,  and  so  saving  the  mental  burthen  of  retain- 
ing the  geography  of  an  article  so  easily  mislaid.  A  man  is  a 
slave  to  anything  on  his  person  he  is  afraid  to  spoil — a  slave  (if 
he  is  not  rich,  as  we  are  not,  dear  reader !)  to  any  costly  habili- 
ment whatever.  The  trees  nod  no  less  graciously,  (it  is  a  pleasure 
to  be  able  to  say,)  because  one's  trowsers  are  of  a  rational  volume 
over  the  portion  most  tried  by  a  sedentary  man,  nor  because  one's 
hat  is  of  an  equivocal  shape — having  served  as  a  non-conductor 
between  a  wet  log  and  its  proprietor ;  but  ladies  do— especially 
country  ladies  ;  and  even  if  they  did  not,  there  is  enough  of  the 
leaven  of  youth,  even  in  philosophers,  to  make  them  unwilling  to 
appear  to  positive  disadvantage,  and  unless  you  are  quite  at  your 
ease  as  to  even  the  ridiculous  shabbiness  of  your  outer  man,  there 
is  no  liberty — no  economical  liberty,  I  mean — in  rural  life.  Do 
not  mislead  yourself,  dear  reader !  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  a 
Spanish  sombrero,  a  pair  of  large  French  trowsers  plaited  over  the 
hips,  a  well-made  English  shoe,  and  a  handsome  checked  shirt, 
form  as  easy  a  costume 'for  the  country  as  philosopher  could  de- 
sire. But  I  write  for  men  who  must  attain  the  same  comfort  in 
a  shirt  of  a  perfectly  independent  description,  trowsers,  oftenest, 
that  have  seen  service  as  tights,  and  show  a  fresher  dye  in  the 
seams,  a  hat,  price  twenty-five  cents,  (by  the  dozen,)  and  shoes 
of  a  remediless  capriciousness  of  outline. 

I  acknowledge  that  such  a  costume  is  a  liberty  with  daylight, 
which  should  only  be  taken  within  one's  own  fence,  and  that  it  is  a 
misfortune  to  be  surprised  in  it  by  a  stranger,  even  there.  But  I 


DRESS  IN  THE  COUNTRY.  183 


wish  to  impress  upon  those  to  whom  this  letter  is  addressed,  the 
obligations  of  country  neighborhood  as  to  dress  and  table,  and  the 
expediency  of  securing  the  degree  of  liberty  which  may  be  de- 
sired, by  a  barrier  of  distance.  Sociable  country  neighbors,  as  I 
said  before,  are  a  luxury,  but  they  are  certainly  an  expensive 
one.  Judging  by  data  within  my  reach,  I  should  say  that  a  man 
who  could  live  for  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year,  within  a  mile  of 
a  sociable  village,  could  have  the  same  personal  comforts  at  ten 
miles'  distance  for  half  the  money.  He  numbers,  say  fifteen  fam- 
ilies, in  his  acquaintance ;  and,  of  course,  pays  at  the  rate  of  fifty 
dollars  a  family  for  the  gratification.  Now  it  is  a  question 
whether  you  would  not  rather  have  the  money  in  board  fence  or 
Berkshire  hogs.  You  may  like  society,  and  yet  not  like  it  at 
such  a  high  price.  Or  (but  this  would  lead  me  to  another  sub- 
ject) you  may  prefer  society  in  a  lump ;  and,  with  a  house  full 
of  friends  in  the  months  of  June  and  July,  live  in  contemplative 
and  economical  solitude  the  remainder  of  the  year.  And  this  lat- 
ter plan  I  take  the  liberty  to  recommend  more  particularly  to 
students  and  authors. 

Touching  "grounds."  The  first  impulses  of  taste  are  dangerous 
to  follow,  no  less  from  their  blindness  to  unforeseen  combinations, 
than  from  their  expensiveness.  In  placing  your  house  as  far 
from  the  public  road  as  possible,  (and  a  considerable  distance 
from  dust  and  intrusion,  seems  at  first  a  sine  qua  non,)  you  entail 
upon  yourself  a  very  costly  appendage  in  the  shape  of  a  private 
road,  which  of  course  must  be  nicely  gravelled  and  nicely  kept. 
A  walk  or  drive,  within  your  gate,  which  is  not  hard  and  free 
from  weeds,  is  as  objectionable  as  an  untidy  white  dress  upon  a 
lady ;  and,  as  she  would  be  better  clad  in  russet,  your  road  were 


184  LETTER  XX. 


better  covered  with  grass.  I  may  as  well  say  that  a  hundred 
yards  of  gravel-walk,  properly  "  scored,"  weeded,  and  rolled, 
will  cost  five  dollars  a  month — a  man's  labor  reckoned  at  the 
present  usage.  Now  no  person  for  whom  this  letter  is  written 
can  afford  to  keep  more  than  one  man-servant  for  "  chores."  A 
hundred  yards  of  gravel- walk,  therefore,  employing  half  his  time, 
you  can  easily  calculate  the  distribution  of  the  remainder,  upon 
the  flower-garden,  kitchen-garden,  wood-shed,  stable,  and  pig- 
gery. (The  female  "  help"  should  milk,  if  I  died  for  it !)  My 
own  opinion  is,  that  fifty  yards  from  the  road  is  far  enough,  and 
twenty  a  more  prudent  distance  ;  though,  in  the  latter  case,  an 
impervious  screen  of  shrubbery  along  your  outer  fence  is  indis- 
pensable. 

The  matter  of  gravel-walks  embraces  several  points  of  rural 
comfort,  and,  to  do  without  them,  you  must  have  no  young 
ladies  in  your  acquaintance,  and,  especially,  no  young  gentlemen 
from  the  cities.  It  may  never  have  occurred  to  you  in  your  side- 
walk life,  that  the  dew  falls  in  the  country  with  tolerable  regu- 
larity ;  and  that  from  sundown  to  ten  in  the  forenoon,  you  are  as 
much  insulated  in  a  cottage  surrounded 'with  high  grass,  as  on  a 
rock  surrounded  with  forty  fathom  water — shod  a  la  mode,  I 
mean.  People  talk  of  being  "  pent  up  in  a  city,"  with  perhaps 
twenty  miles  of  flagged  sidewalk  extending  from  their  door-stone  I 
They  are  apt  to  draw  a  contrast,  favorable  to  the  liberty  of  cities, 
however,  if  they  come  thinly  shod  to  the  country,  and  must 
either  wade  in  the  grass  or  stumble  through  the  ruts  of  a  dusty 
road.  If  you  wish  to  see  bodies  acted  on  by  an  "  exhausted  re- 
ceiver," (giving  out  their  "  airs,"  of  course,)  shut  up  your  young 
city  friends  in  a  country  cottage,  by  th?  compulsion  of  wet  grass 


CHEAP  WALKS.  185 


and  muddy  highways.  Better  gravel  your  whole  farm,  you  say. 
But  having  reduced  you  to  this  point  of  horror,  you  are  prepared 
to  listen  without  contempt,  while  I  suggest  two  humble  sue- 
cedanea. 

•  First :  On  receiving  intimation  of  a  probable  visit  from  a  city 
friend,  write  by  return  of  post  for  the  size  of  her  foot,  (or  his.) 
Provide  immediately  a  pair  of  India-rubber  shoes  of  the  corres- 
ponding number,  and,  on  the  morning  after  your  friend's  arrival, 
be  ready  with  them  at  the  first  horrified  withdrawal  of  the  damp 
foot  from  the  grass.  Your  shoes  may  cost  you  a  dollar  a  pair, 
but,  if  your  visitors  are  not  more  than  ten  or  twelve  in  the  season, 
it  is  a  saving  of  fifty  per  cent.,  at  least  in  gravelling  and  weeding. 

Or,  Second  :  Enclose  the  two  or  three  acres  immediately  about 
your  house  with  a  ring  fence,  and  pasture  within  it  a  small  flock 
of  sheep.  They  are  clean  and  picturesque,  (your  dog  should  be 
taught  to  keep  them  from  the  doors  and  porticoes,)  and,  by  feed- 
ing down  the  grass  to  a  continual  greensward,  they  give  the  dew 
a  chance  to  dry  off  early,  and  enlarge"  your  cottage  "  liberties  "  to 
the  extent  of  their  browsings. 

I  may  as  well  add,  by  the  way,  that  a  walk  with  the  sod  sim- 
ply taken  off,  is,  in  this  climate,  dry  enough,  except  for  an  hour 
or  two  after  a  heavy  rain ;  and,  besides  the  original  saving  in 
gravel,  it  is  kept  clean  with  a  quarter  of  the  trouble.  A  weed 
imbedded  in  stones  is  a  much  more  obstinate  customer  than  a 
score  of  them  sliced  from  the  smooth  ground.  At  any  rate,  out 
with  them !  A  neglected  walk  indicates  that  worst  of  country 
diseases,  a  mind  grown  slovenly  and  slip-slop  !  Your  house  may 
go  unpainted,  and  your  dress  (with  one  exception)  submit  to  the 
course  of  events — but  be  scrupulous  in  the  whiteness  of  your 


186  LETTER  XX. 


linen,  tenacious  of  the  neatness  of  your  gravel- walks ;  and,  while 
these  points  hold,  you  are  at  a  redeemable  remove  from  the 
lapse  (fatally  prone  and  easy)  into  barbarian!  sm  and  misanthropy. 
Before  I  enter  upon  the  cultivation  of  grounds,  let  me  lay  be- 
fore the  reader  my  favorite  idea  of  a  cottage — not  a  cottage  ornee 
but  a  cottage  insoucieuse,  if  I  may  coin  a  phrase.  In  the  valley 
of  Sweet  Waters,  on  the  banks  of  the  Barbyses,  there  stands  a 
small  pleasure-palace  of  the  Sultan,  which  looks  as  if  it  was 
dropped  into  the  green  lap  of  Nature,  like  a  jewel-case  on  a  birth- 
day, with  neither  preparation  on  the  part  of  the  bestower,  nor 
disturbance  on  the  part  of  the  receiver.  From  the  balcony's  foot 
on  every  side  extends  an  unbroken  sod  to  the  horizon.  Gigantic 
trees  shadow  the  grass  here  and  there,  and  an  enormous  marble 
vase,  carved  in  imitation  of  a  sea-shell,  turns  the  silver  Barbyses 
in  a  curious  cascade  over  its  lip ;  but  else,  it  is  all  Nature's  lap, 
with  its  bauble  resting  in  velvet — no  gardens,  no  fences,  no  walls, 
no  shrubberies — a  beautiful  valley,  with  the  sky  resting  on  its 
rim,  and  nothing  in  it  save  one  fairy  palace.  The  simplicity  of 
the  thing  enchanted  me,  and,  in  all  my  yearnings  after  rural  se- 
clusion, this  vision  of  old  travel  has,  more  or  less,  colored  mj 
fancy.  You  see  what  I  mean,  with  half  an  eye.  Gardens  are 
beautiful,  shrubberies  ornamental,  summer-houses  and  alleys,  and 
gravelled  paths,  all  delightful — but  they  are,  each  and  all,  taxes 
— heavy  taxes  on  mind,  time,  and  money.  Perhaps  you  like 
them.  Perhaps  you  want  the  occupation.  But  some  men,  of 
small  means,  like  a  contemplative  idleness  in  the  country.  Some 
men's  time  never  hangs  heavily  under  a  tree.  Some  men  like  to 
lock  their  doors,  (or  to  be  at  liberty  to  do  so,)  and  be  gone  for  a 
month,  without  dread  of  gardens  plundei  xl,  flowers  trod  down, 


TRUE  COUNTRY  FREEDOM.  187 


shrubs  browsed  off  by  cattle.  Some  men  like  nothing  out  of 
doors  but  that  which  can  take  care  of  itself — the  side  of  a  house 
or  a  forest-tree,  or  an  old  horse  in  a  pasture.  These  men,  too, 
like  that  which  is  beautiful,  and  for  such  I  draw  this  picture  of 
the  cottage  insoucieuse.  What  more  simply  elegant  than  a  pretty 
structure  in  the  lap  of  a  green  dell !  What  more  convenient ! 
What  so  economical !  Sheep  (we  may  "  return  to  muttons  ")  are 
cheaper  "  help  "  than  men,  and  if  they  do  not  keep  your  green- 
sward so  brightly  mown,  they  crop  it  faithfully  and  turn  the  crop 
to  better  account.  The  only  rule  of  perfect  independence  in  the 
country  is  to  make  no  "improvement''  which  requires  more  at- 
tention than  the  making.  So — you  are  at  liberty  to  take  your 
wife  to  the  Springs.  So — you  can  join  a  coterie  at  Niagara  at  a 
letter's  warning.  So — you  can  spend  a  winter  in  Italy  without 
leaving  half  your  income  to  servants  who  keep  house  at  home. 
So — you  can  sleep  without  dread  of  hail-storms  on  your  grape- 
ries or  green-houses,  without  blunderbuss  for  depredators  of 
fruit,  without  distress  at  slugs,  cut-worms,  drought,  or  breachy 
cattle.  Nature  is  prodigal  of  flowers,  grapes  are  cheaper  bought 
than  raised,  fruit  idem,  butter  idem,  (though  you  mayn't  think 
so,)  and,  as  for  amusement — the  man  who  can  not  find  it  between 
driving,  fishing,  shooting,  strolling,  and  reading,  (to  say  nothing 
of  less  selfish  pleasures,)  has  no  business  in  the  country.  He 
should  go  back  to  town. 


LETTER    XXI. 

[The  following  letter  was  addressed  to  a  young  gentleman  of College, 

who  is  "  bit  by  the  dipsas"  of  authorship.  His  mother,  a  sensible,  plain 
farmer's  widow,  chanced  to  be  my  companion,  for  a  couple  of  days,  in  a 
stage-coach,  and,  while  creeping  over  the  mountains  between  the  Hudson 
and  the  Susquehannah,  she  paid  my  common  sense  the  compliment  of  un- 
burthening  a  very  stout  heart  to  me.  Since  her  husband's  death,  she  has 
herself  managed  the  farm,  and,  by  active,  personal  oversight,  has  contrived 
"  to  make  both  ends  so  far  lap,"  (to  use  her  own  expression,)  as  to  keep  her 
only  boy  at  college.  By  her  description,  he  is  a  slenderish  lad  in  his  con- 
stitution, fond  of  poetry,  and  bent  on  trying  his  fortune  with  his  pen,  as 
soon  as  he  has  closed  his  thumb  and  finger  on  his  degree.  The  good  dame 
wished  for  the  best  advice  I  could  give  him  on  the  subject,  leaving  it  to  me 
(after  producing  a  piece  of  his  poetry  from  her  pocket,  published  in  one  of 
the  city  papers)  to  encourage  or  dissuade.  I  apprehended  a  troublesome 
job  of  it,  but  after  a  very  genial  conversation,  (on  the  subject  of  raising 
turkeys,  in  which  she  quite  agreed  with  me,  that  they  were  cheaper  bought 
than  raised,  when  corn  was  fifty  cents  a  bushel — greedy  gobblers !)  I 
reverted  to  the  topic  of  poetry,  and  promised  to  write  the  inspired  sopho- 
more my  views  as  to  his  prospects. 

Thus  runs  the  letter : — ] 

DEAR  SIR  :  You  will  probably  not  recognize  the  handwriting 
in  which  you  are  addressed,  but,  by  casting  your  eye  to  the  con- 
clusion of  tlie  letter,  you  will  see  that  it  comes  from  an  old  stager 


MARKET  FOR  POETRY.  189 


in  periodical  literature ;  and  of  that,  as  a  profession,  I  am 
requested  by  your  mother  to  give  you,  as  she  phrases  it,  "  the 
cost  and  yield."  You  will  allow  what  right  you  please  to  my 
opinions,  and  it  is  only  with  the  authority  of  having  lived  by  the 
pen,  that  I  pretend  to  offer  any  hints  on  the  subject  for  your 
guidance.  As  "the  farm"  can  afford  you  nothing  beyond  your 
education,  you  will  excuse  me  for  presuming  that  you  need  in- 
formation mainly  as  to  the  livelihood  to  be  got  from  literature. 

Your  mother  thinks  it  is  a  poor  market  for  potatoes,  where 
potatoes  are  to  be  had  for  nothing ;  and  that  is  simply  the  condi- 
tion of  American  literature,  (as  protected  by  law.)  The  contributors 
to  the  numerous  periodicals  of  England,  are  the  picked  men  of 
thousands — the  accepted  of  hosts  rejected — the  flower  of  a 
highly- educated  and  refined  people — soldiers,  sailors,  lords,  ladies, 
and  lawyers — all  at  leisure,  all  anxious  to  turn  a  penny,  all  ambi- 
tious of  print  and  profit ;  and  this  great  army,  in  addition  to  the 
hundreds  urged  by  need  and  pure  literary  zeal — this  great  army, 
I  say,  are  before  you  in  the  market,  offering  their  wares  to  your 
natural  customer,  at  a  price  for  which  you  can  not  afford  to  sell 
— nothing  !  It  is  true  that,  by  this  state  of  the  literary  market, 
you  have  fewer  competitors  among  your  countrymen — the  best 
talent  of  the  country  being  driven,  by  necessity,  into  less  congenial 
and  more  profitable  pursuits  ;  but  even  with  this  advantage  (none 
but  doomed  authors  in  the  field)  you  would  probably  find  it 
difficult,  within  five  years  after  you  graduated,  to  convert  your 
best  piece  of  poetry  into  a  genuine  dollar.  I  allow  you,  at  the 
same  time,  full  credit  for  your  undoubted  genius. 

You  naturally  inquire  how  American  authors  live.  I  answer, 
by  being  English  authors.  There  is  no  American  author  who 


190  LETTER  XXI. 


lives  by  his  pen,  for  whom  London  is  not  the  chief  market. 
Those  whose  books  sell  only  in  this  country,  make  scarce  the 
wages  of  a  day -laborer — always  excepting  religious  writers,  and 
the  authors  of  school-books,  and  such  works  as  owe  their  popu- 
larity to  extrinsic  causes.  To  begin  on  leaving  college,  with 
legitimate  book-making — writing  novels,  tales,  volumes  of  poetry, 
&c.,  you  must  have  at  least  five  years'  support  from  some  other 
source,  for,  until  you  get  a  name,  nothing  you  could  write  would 
pay  "  board  and  lodging ;"  and  "  getting  a  name"  in  America, 
implies  having  first  got  a  name  in  England.  Then  we  have 
almost  no  professed,  mere  authors.  They  have  vocations  of  some 
other  character,  also.  Men  like  Dana,  Bryant,  Sprague,  Halleck, 
Kennedy,  Wetmore,  though,  no  doubt,  it  is  the  first  wish  of  their 
hearts  to  devote  all  their  time  to  literature,  are  kept,  by  our 
atrocious  laws  of  copyright,  in  paths  less  honorable  to  their 
country,  but  more  profitable  to  themselves ;  and  by  far  the  great- 
est number  of  discouraged  authors  are  "  broken  on  the  wheel" 
of  the  public  press.  Gales,  Walsh,  Chandler,  Buckingham,  an^ 
other  editors  of  that  stamp,  are  men  driven  aside  from  authorship 
their  proper  vocation. 

Periodical  writing  seems  the  natural  novitiate  to  literary  fame 
in  our  country,  and  I  understand  from  your  mother  that  through 
this  lies  your  chosen  way.  I  must  try  to  give  you  as  clear  an 
idea  as  possible  of  the  length  and  breadth  of  it,  and  perhaps  I 
can  best  do  so  by  contrasting  it  with  another  career,  which  (if 
advice  were  not  always  useless)  I  should  sooner  advise. 

Your  mother's  farm,  then,  consisting  of  near  a  hundred  acres, 
gives  a  net  produce  of  about  five  hundred  dollars  a  year — hands 
paid,  I  mean,  and  seed,  wear  and  tear  of  tools,  team,  &c.,  first 


FARMING  AND  AUTHORSHIP.  191 


subtracted.  She  has  lived  as  comfortable  as  usual  for  the  last 
three  or  four  years,  and  still  contrived  to  lay  by  the  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  expended  annually  on  your  education.  Were 
you  at  home,  your  own  labor  and  oversight  would  add  rather 
more  than  two  hundred  dollars  to  the  income,  and  with  good 
luck  you  might  call  yourself  a  farmer  with  five  hundred  dollars, 
as  the  Irish  say,  "  to  the  fore."  Your  vocation,  at  the  same 
time,  is  dignified,  and  such  as  would  reflect  favorably  on  your 
reputation,  should  you  hereafter  become  in  any  way  eminent. 
During  six  months  in  the  year,  you  would  scarce  find  more  than 
an  hour  or  two  in  the  twenty-four  to  spare  from  sleep  or  labor ; 
but,  in  the  winter  months,  with  every  necessary  attention  to  your 
affairs  out  of  doors,  still  find  as  much  leisure  for  study  and 
composition  as  most  literary  men  devote  to  those  purposes.  I 
say  nothing  of  the  pabulum  of  rural  influences  on  your  mind,  but 
will  just  hint  at  another  incidental  advantage  you  may  not  have 
thought  of,  viz :  that  the  public  show  much  more  alacrity  in 
crowning  an  author,  if  he  does  not  make  bread  and  butter  of  the 
laurels !  In  other  words,  if  you  are  a  farmer,  you  are  supposed 
(by  a  world  not  very  brilliant  in  its  conclusions)  to  expend  the 
most  of  your  mental  energies  (as  they  do)  in  making  your  living ; 
and  your  literature  goes  for  an  "  aside" — waste- water,  as  the 
millers  phrase  it — a  very  material  premise  in  both  criticism  and 
public  estimation. 

At  your  age,  the  above  picture  would  have  been  thrown  awaj 
on  myself,  and  I  presume  (inviting  as  it  seems  to  my  world-wearj 
eyes)  it  is  thrown  away  now  upon  you.  I  shall  therefore  tiy  tc 
present  to  you  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  picture  which  seea 
to  you  more  attractive. 


192  LETTER  XXI. 


Your  first  step  will  be  to  select  New  York  as  the  city  which  is 
to  be  illustrated  by  your  residence,  and  to  commence  a  search 
after  some  literary  occupation.  You  have  a  volume  of  poetry 
which  has  been -returned  to  you  by  your  "literary  agent,"  with  a 
heavy  charge  for  procuring  the  refusal  of  every  publisher  to 
undertake  it ;  and,  with  your  pride  quite  taken  out  of  you,  you  are 
willing  to  devote  your  Latin  and  Greek,  your  acquaintance  with 
prosody  and  punctuation,  and  a  very  middling  proficiency  in 
chirography  (no  offence — your  mother  showed  me  your  auto- 
graph list  of  bills  for  the  winter  term) — all  this  store  of  accom- 
plishment you  offer  to  employ  for  a  trifle  besides  meat,  lodging, 
and  apparel.  These,  you  say,  are  surely  moderate  expectations 
for  an  educated  man,  and  such  wares,  so  cheap,  must  find  a 
ready  market.  Of  such  stuff,  you  know  that  editors  are  made ; 
and,  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  vacant  editorial  chair,  you  pocket 
your  MSS.,  and  commence  inquiry.  At  the  end  of  the  month, 
you  begin  to  think  yourself  the  one  person  on  earth  for  whom 
there  seems  no  room.  There  is  no  editor  wanted,  no  sub-editor 
wanted,  no  reporter,  no  proof-reader,  no  poet !  There  are  passa- 
ble paragraphists  by  scores — educated  young  men,  of  every  kind, 
of  promising  talent,  who,  for  twenty  dollars  a  month,  would  joy- 
fully do  twice  what  you  propose — give  twice  as  much  time,  and 
furnish  twice  as  much  "  copy."  But  as  you  design,  of  course,  to 
"  go  into  society,"  and  gather  your  laurels  as  they  blossom,  you 
cannot  see  your  way  very  clearly  with  less  than  a  hay-maker's 
wages.  You  proceed  with  your  inquiries,  however,  and  are,  at 
last,  quite  convinced  that  few  things  are  more  difficult  than  to 
coin  uncelebrated  brains  into  current  money — that  the  avenues 
for  the  employment  of  the  head,  only,  are  emulously  crowded — 


SUBSISTENCE   OF  AUTHORS.  193 


that  there  are  many  more  than  you  had  supposed  who  have  the 
same  object  as  yourself,  and  that,  whatever  fame  may  be  in  its 
meridian  and  close,  its  morning  is  mortification  and  starvation. 

The  "small  end  of  the  horn"  has  a  hole  in  it,  however,  and 
the  bitter  stage  of  experience  I  have  just  described,  might  be 
omitted  in  your  history,  if,  by  any  other  means,  you  could  be 
made  small  enough  to  go  in.  The  most  considerable  diminution 
of  size,  perhaps,  is  the  getting  rid,  for  the  time,  of  all  idea  of 
"  living  like  a  gentleman,"  (according  to  the  common  acceptation 
of  the  phrase.)  To  be  willing  to  satisfy  hunger  in  any  clean  and 
honest  way,  to  sleep  in  any  clean  and  honest  place,  and  to  wear 
anything  clean  and  honestly  paid  for,  are  phases  of  the  crescent 
moon  of  fame,  not  very  prominently  laid  down  in  our  imaginary 
chart ;  but  they  are,  nevertheless,  the  first  indication  of  that 
moon's  waxing.  I  see  by  the  advertisements,  that  there  are 
facilities  now  for  cheap  living,  which  did  not  exist  "  when  George 
the  Third  was  king."  A  dinner  (of  beef,  bread,  and  potatoes, 
with  a  bottle  of  wine)  is  offered,  by  an  advertiser,  of  the  savory 
name  of  Goslin,  for  a  shilling,  and  a  breakfast,  most  invitingly 
described,  is  offered  for  sixpence.  I  have  no  doubt  a  lodging 
might  be  procured  at  the  same  modest  rate  of  charge.  "  Socie- 
ty" does  not  move  on  this  plane,  it  is  true,  but  society  is  not 
worth  seeking  at  any  great  cost,  while  you  are  obscure ;  and,  if 
you'll  wait  till  the  first  moment  when  it  would  be  agreeable,  (the 
moment  when  it  thinks  it  worth  while  to  caress  you,)  it  will 
come  to  you,  like  Mohammed  to  the  mountain.  And  like  the 
mountain's  moving  to  Mohammed,  you  will  find  any  premature 
ambition  on  the  subject. 

Giving  up  the  expectation  of  finding  employment    suiud  to 

VOL.  i.  0 


194  LETTER  XXi. 


your  taste,  you  will,  of  course,  be  "open  to  offers;"  and  I  should 
counsel  you  to  take  any  that  would  pay,  which  did  not  positively 
shut  the  door  upon  literature.  At  the  same  wages,  you  had  bet- 
ter direct  covers  in  a  newspaper  office,  than  contribute  original 
matter  which  costs  you  thought,  yet  is  not  appreciated ;  and  in 
fact,  as  I  said  before  with  reference  to  farming,  a  subsistence  not 
dilectly  obtained  by  brain-work,  is  a  material  advantage  to  an 
author.  Eight  hours  of  mere  mechanical  copying,  and  two  hours 
of  leisurely  composition,  will  tire  you  less,  and  produce  more  for 
your  reputation  than  twelve  hours  of  intellectual  drudgery.  The 
publishers  and  booksellers  have  a  good  deal  of  work  for  educated 
men — proof-reading,  compiling,  corresponding,  &c.,  and  this  is  a 
good  step  to  higher  occupation.  As  you  moderate  your  wants, 
of  course  you  enlarge  your  chances  for  employment. 

Getting  up  in  the  world  is  like  walking  through  a  mist — your 
way  opens  as  you  get  on.  I  should  say  that,  with  tolerable  good 
fortune,  you  might  make,  by  your  pen,  two  hundred  dollars  the 
first  year,  and  increase  your  income  a  hundred  dollars  annually, 
for  five  years.  This,  as  a  literary  "  operative."  After  that 
period,  you  would  either  remain  stationary,  a  mere  "  workey,"  or 
your  genius  would  discover,  "  by  the  dip  of  the  divining-rod," 
where,  in  the  well-searched  bowels  of  literature,  lay  an  un worked 
vein  of  ore.  In  the  latter  case,  you  would  draw  that  one  prize, 
in  a  thousand  blanks,  of  which  the  other  competitors  in  the  lot- 
tery of  fame  feel  as  sure  as  yourself. 

As  a  "  stock"  or  "  starring"  player  upon  the  literary  stage,  of 
course  you  desire  a  crowded  audience ;  and  it  is  worth  your  while, 
perhaps,  to  inquire  (more  curiously  than  is  laid  down  in  most  ad- 
*»*es  to  authors)  what  is  the  number  and  influence  of  the  judi- 


USES  OF  FAULTS.  195 


cious,  and  what  nuts  it  is  politic  to  throw  to  the  groundlings. 
Abuse  is,  in  criticism,  what  shade  is  in  a  picture,  discord  in  har- 
mony, acid  in  punch,  salt  in  seasoning.  Unqualified  praise  is  the 
death  of  Tarpeia,  and  to  be  neither  praised  nor  abused  is  more 
than  death — it  is  inanition.  Query — how  to  procure  yourself 
to  be  abused  ?  In  your  chemica.  course  next  year,  you  will 
probably  give  a  morning's  attention  to  the  analysis  of  the  pearl, 
among  other  precious  substances ;  and  you  will  be  told  by  the 
professor,  that  it  is  the  consequence  of  an  excess  of  carbo- 
nate of  lime  in  the  flesh  of  the  oyster — in  other  words,  the  disease 
of  the  sub-aqueous  animal  who  produces  it.  Now,  to  copy  this 
politic  invalid — to  learn  wisdom  of  an  oyster — find  out  what  is 
the  most  pungent  disease  of  your  style,  and  hug  it  till  it  becomes 
a  pearl.  A  fault  carefully  studied  is  the  germ  of  a  peculiarity ; 
and  a  peculiarity  is  a  pearl  of  great  price  to  an  author.  The 
critics  begin  very  justly  by  hammering  at  it  as  a  fault,  and,  after 
it  is  polished  into  a  peculiarity,  they  still  hammer  at  it  as  a  fault, 
and  the  noise  they  make  attracts  attention  to  the  pearl;  and  up 
you  come  from  the  deep  sea  of  obscurity,  not  the  less  intoxicated 
with  the  sunshine,  because,  but  for  your  disease,  you  would  never 
have  seen  it. 

[To  the  above  may  be  added  a  passage  on  the  same  subject,  written  in 
another  place :] 

YOUNG    POETS. 

An  old  man  with  no  friend  but  his  money — a  fair  child  holding 
the  hand  of  a  Magdalen — a  delicate  bride  given  over  to  a  coarse- 
minded  bridegroom — were  sights  to  be  troubled  at  seeing.  We 
should  bleed  at  heart  to  see  either  of  tiem.  But  there  is  some- 


196  LETTER  XXI. 


thing  even  more  touching  to  us  than  these — something,  too, 
which  is  the  subject  of  heartless  and  habitual  mockery  by  crit- 
ics— the  first  timid  offerings,  to  fame,  of  the  youthful  and  sanguine 
poet.  We  declare  that  we  never  open  a  letter  from  one  of  this 
class,  never  read  a  preface  to  the  first  book  of  one  of  them,  nevei 
arrest  our  critical  eye  upon  a  blemish  in  the  immature  page,  with- 
out having  the  sensation  of  a  tear  coined  in  our  heart — nevei 
without  a  passionate,  though  inarticulate,  "  God  help  you  !"  We 
know  so  well  the  rasping  world  in  which  they  are  to  jostle,  with 
their  "  fibre  of  sarcenet !"  We  know  so  well  the  injustices,  the  re- 
buffs, the  sneers,  the  insensibilities,  fromivithout — the  impatiences, 
the  resentments,  the  choked  impulses  and  smothered  heart-bound- 
ings  within.  And  yet  it  is  not  these  outward  penances,  and 
inward  scorpions,  that  cause  us  the  most  regret  in  the  fate  of  the 
poet.  Out  of  these  is  born  the  inspired  expression  of  his  anguish — 
like  the  plaint  of  the  singing  bird  from  the  heated  needle  which 
blinds  him.  We  mourn  more  over  his  fatuous  imperviousncss  to 
counsel — over  his  haste  to  print,  his  slowness  to  correct — over  his 
belief  that  the  airy  bridges  he  builds  over  the  chasms  in  his  logic 
and  rhythm  are  passable,  by  avoirdupois  on  foot,  as  well  as  by 
Poesy  on  Pegasus.  That  the  world  is  not  as  much  enchanted — 
(that  we  ourselves  are  not  as  much  touched  and  delighted) — with 
the  halting  flights  of  new  poets  as  with  the  broken  and  short 
venturings  in  air  of  new-fledged  birds — proves  over  again  that 
the  world  we  live  in  were  a  good  enough  Eden,  if  human  nature 
were  as  loveable  as  the  rest.  We  wish  it  were  not  so.  We  wish 
it  were  natural  to  admire  anything  human-made,  that  has  not  cost 
pain  and  trial.  But,  since  we  do  not,  and  can  not,  it  is  a  pity,  we 
say  again,  that  beginners  in  poetry  are  offended  with  kind  conn- 


TREATMENT  OF  YOUNG  POETS.         197 


sel.  Of  the  great  many  books  and  manuscript  poems  we  receive, 
there  is  never  one  from  a  young  poet,  which  we  do  not  long,  in 
all  kindness,  to  send  back  to  him  to  be  restudied,  rewritten,  and 
made,  in  finish,  more  worthy  of  the  conception.  To  praise  it  in 
print  only  puts  his  industry  to  sleep,  and  makes  him  dream  he 
has  achieved  what  is  yet  far  beyond  him.  We  ask  the  young 
poets  who  read  this,  where  would  be  the  kindness  in  such  a 

9 


THE   FOUR  KIVEHS." 

THE  HUDSON — THE  MOHAWK — THE  CHEXANGO — THE  SUSQUEHANNAH. 

SOME  observer  of  Nature  offered  a  considerable  reward  for  two 
blades  of  striped  grass  exactly  similar.  The  infinite  diversity,  of 
which  this  is  one  instance,  exists  in  a  thousand  other  features  of 
Nature,  but  in  none  more  strikingly  than  in  the  scenery  of  rivers. 
What  two  in  the  world  are  alike  ?  How  often  dees  the  attempt 
fail  to  compare  the  Hudson  with  the  Rhine — the  two,  perhaps, 
among  celebrated  rivers,  which  are  the  nearest  to  a  resemblance  ? 
Yet  looking  at  the  first  determination  of  a  river's  course,  and  the 
natural  operation  of  its  search  for  the  sea,  one  would  suppose 
that,  in  a  thousand  features,  their  valleys  would  scarce  be  dis- 
tinguishable. 

I  think,  of  all  excitements  in  the  world,  that  of  the  first  dis- 
covery and  exploration  of  a  noble  river,  must  be  the  most  eager 
and  enjoyable.  Fancy  "the  bold  Englishman,"  as  the  Dutch 
called  Hendrich  Hudson,  steering  his  little  yacht,  the  Halve -Mane, 

*  It  was  on  the  excursion  here  described,  that  the  author  first  saw  the 
spot  •which  he  afterwards  made  a  residence,  and  where  the  foregoing  letters 
were  written. 


THE  HUDSON.  199 


for  the  first  time  through  the  Highlands  !  Imagine  his  anxiety 
for  the  channel,  forgotten  as  he  gazed  up  at  the  towering  rocks, 
and  round  the  green  shores,  and  onward,  past  point  and  opening 
bend,  miles  away  into  the  heart  of  the  country ;  yet  with  no  les- 
sening of  the  glorious  stream  beneath  him,  and  no  decrease  of 
promise  in  the  bold  and  luxuriant  shores  !  Picture  him  lying  at 
anchor  below  Newburgh,  with  the  dark  pass  of  the  "  Wey-Gat" 
frowning  behind  him,  the  lofty  and  blue  Cattskills  beyond,  and 
the  hillsides  around  covered  with  the  red  lords  of  the  soil,  exhib- 
iting only  less  wonder  than  friendliness.  And  how  beautifully  was 
the  assurance  of  welcome  expressed,  when  the  "  very  kind  old 
man"  brought  a  bunch  of  arrows,  and  broke  them  before  the 
stranger,  to  induce  him  to  partake  fearlessly  of  his  hospitality  ! 

The  qualities  of  the  Hudson  are  those  most  likely  to  impress  a 
stranger.  It  chances  felicitously  that  the  traveller's  first  entrance 
beyond  the  sea-board  is  usually  made  by  the  steamer  to  Albany. 
The  grand  and  imposing  outlines  of  rock  and  horizon  answer  to 
his  anticipations  of  the  magnificence  of  a  new  world ;  and  if  he 
finds  smaller  rivers  and  softer  scenery  beyond,  it  strikes  him  but 
as  a  slighter  lineament  of  a  more  enlarged  design.  To  the  great 
majority  of  tastes,  this,  too,  is  the  scenery  to  live  among.  The 
stronger  lines  of  natural  beauty  affect  most  tastes  ;  and  there  are 
few  who  would  select  country  residence  by  beauty  at  all,  who 
would  not  sacrifice  something  to  their  preference  for  the  neighbor- 
hood of  sublime  scenery.  The  quiet,  the  merely  rural — a  thread 
of  a  rivulet  instead  of  a  broad  river — a  small  and  secluded  valley, 
rather  than  a  wi?3  extent  of  view,  bounded  by  bold  mountains,  is 
the  choice  of  but  few.  The  Hudson,  therefore,  stands  usually 


200  THE  FOUR  RIVERS. 


foremost  in  men's  aspirations  for  escape  from  the  turmoil  of  cities 
but,  to  my  taste,  though  there  are  none  more  desirable  to  see, 
there  are  sweeter  rivers  to  live  upon. 

I  ma'de  one  of  a  party,  very  lately,  bound  upon  a  rambling  ex- 
cursion up  and  down  some  of  the  river-courses  of  New  York.  We 
had  anticipated  empty  boats,  and  absence  of  all  the  gay  company 
usually  found  radiating  from  the  city  in  June,  and  had  made  up 
our  minds  for  once  to  be  contented  with  the  study  of  inanimate 
nature.  Never  were  wiseheads  more  mistaken.  Our  kind  friend, 
Captain  Dean,  of  the  Stevens,  stood  by  his  plank  when  we  ar- 
rived, doing  his  best  to  save  the  lives  of  the  female  portion  of  the 
crowd  rushing  on  board ;  and  never,  in  the  most  palmy  days  of 
the  prosperity  of  our  country,  have  we  seen  a  greater  number  of 
people  on  board  a  boat,  nor  a  stronger  expression  of  that  busy 
and  thriving  haste,  which  is  thought  to  be  an  exponent  of  na- 
tional industry.  How  those  varlets  of  newsboys  contrive  to 
escape  in  time,  or  escape  at  all,  from  being  crushed  or  carried  off; 
how  everybody's  baggage  gets  on  board,  and  everybody's  wife 
and  child ;  how  the  hawsers  are  slipped,  and  the  boat  got  under 
way,  in  such  a  crowd  and  such  a  crush,  are  matters  understood, 
I  suppose,  by  Providence  and  the  captain  of  the  Stevens — but 
they  are  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  passenger. 

Having  got  out  of  hearing  of  "  Here's  the  Star  !"  "  Buy  the 
old  Major's  paper,  sir !"  "  Here's  the  Express  !"•  "  Buy  the 
New-Ery  /"  "  Would  you  like  a  New-Era,  sir  ?"  "  Take  a  Sun, 
miss  ?"  and  a  hundred  such  deafening  cries,  to  which  New  York 
has  of  late  years  become  subject,  we  drew  breath  and  compara- 
tive silence  off  the  green  sh  )re  of  Hoboken,  thanking  Heaven  fo* 


THE  MOHAWK.  201 


eveii  the  repose  of  a  steamboat,  after  the  babel  of  a  metropolis. 
Stillness,  like  all  other  things,  is  relative. 

The  passage  of  the  Hudson  is  doomed  to  be  be-written,  and  we 
will  not  again  swell  its  great  multitude  of  describers.  Bound 
onward,  we  but  gave  a  glance,  in  passing,  to  romantic  Undercliff 
and  Cro'-Mest,  hallowed  by  the  most  imaginative  poetry  our  coun- 
try has  yet  committed  to  immortality  ;*  gave  our  malison  to  the 
black  smoke  of  iron- works  defacing  the  green  mantle  of  Nature, 
and  our  benison  to  every  dweller  on  the  shore  who  has  painted  his 
fence  white,  and  smoothed  his  lawn  to  the  river ;  and,  sooner 
than  we  used  to  do  by  some  five  or  six  hours,  (ere  railroads  had 
supplanted  the  ploughing  and  crawling  coaches  to  Schenectady,)  we 
fed  our  eyes  on  the  slumbering  and  broad  valley  of  theMohawk. 

How  startled  must  be  the  Naiad  of  this  lovely  river  to  find  her 
willowy  form  embraced  between  railroad  and  canal — one  intruder 
on  either  side  of  the  bed  so  sacredly  overshaded !  Pity  but  there 
were  a  new  knight  of  La  Mancha  to  avenge  the  hamadryads  and 
water-nymphs  of  their  wrongs  from  wood- cutters  and  contractors  ! 
Where  sleep  Pan  and  vengeful  Oread,  when  a  Yankee  settler 
hews  me  down  twenty  wood-nymphs  of  a  morning  ?  There  lie 
their  bodies,  limbless  trunks,  on  the  banks  of  the  Mohawk,  yet  no 
Dutchman  stands  sprouting  into  leaves  near  by,  nor  woollen  jacket 
turning  into  bark,  as  in  the  retributive  olden  time  !  "We  are  aban- 
doned of  these  gods  of  Arcady  !  They  like  not  the  smoke  of 
steam  funnels ! 

Talking  of  smoke  reminds  me  of  ashes.  Is  there  no  way  of 
frequenting  railroads  without  the  loss  of  one's  eyes  ?  Must  one 

*  Drake's  "  Culprit  Fay." 


202  THE  FOUR   RIVERS. 


pay  for  velocity  as  dearly  as  Cacus  for  his  oxen  ?  Really,  this 
new  invention  is  a  blessing — tc  the  oculists  !  Ten  thousand  small 
crystals  of  carbon  cutting  right  and  left  among  the  fine  vessels 
and  delicate  membranes  of  the  eye,  and  all  this  amid  glorious 
scenery,  where  to  go  bandaged,  (as  needs  must,)  is  to  slight  the 
master-work  of  Nature  !  Either  run  your  railroads  away  from 
the  river-courses,  gentlemen  contractors,  or  find  some  other  place 
than  your  passengers'  eyes  to  bestow  your  waste  ashes !  I  have 
heard  of  "lies  in  smiles,"  but  there's  a  lye  in  tears,  that  touches 
the  sensibilities  more  nearly ! 

There  is  a  drowsy  beauty  in  these  German  flats  that  seems 
strangely  profaned  by  a  smoky  monster  whisking  along  twenty 
miles  in  the  hour.  The  gentle  canal-boat  was  more  homogene- 
ous to  the  scene.  The  hills  lay  off  from  the  river  in  easy  and 
sleepy  curves,  and  the  amber  Mohawk  creeps  down  over  its 
shallow  gravel  with  a  deliberateness  altogether  and  abominably 
out  of  tune  with  the  iron  rails.  Perhaps  it  is  the  rails  out  of 
tune  with  the  river — but  any  way  there  is  a  discord.  I  am  con- 
tent to  see  the  Mohawk,  canal,  and  railroad  inclusive,  but  once  a 
year. 

We  reached  the  head-waters  of  the  Chenango  River,  by  what 
Miss  Martineau  celebrates  as  an  "  exclusive  extra,"  in  an  after- 
noon's ride  from  Utica.  The  latter  thrifty  and  hospitable  town 
was  as  redolent  of  red  bricks  and  sunshine  as  usual ;  and  the 
streets,  to  my  regret,  had  grown  no  narrower.  They  who  laid 
out  the  future  legislative  capital  of  New  York,  must  have  been 
lovers  of  winter's  wind  and  summer's  sun.  They  forgot  the 
troubles  of  the  near-sighted  ;  (it  requires  spectacles  to  read  the 
signs  or  see  the  shops  from  one  side  to  the  other ;)  they  forgot 


THE  CHENANGO.  203 


the  perils  of  old  women  and  children  in  the  wide  crossings ;  they 
forgot  the  pleasures  of  shelter  and  shade,  of  neighborly  vis-a-vis, 
of  comfortdble-lookingness.  I  maintain  that  Utica  is  not  a  com- 
fortable-looking town.  It  affects  me  like  the  clown  in  the  panto- 
mime, when  he  sits  do^ni  without  bending  his  legs — by  mere 
straddling.  I  would  not  say  anything  so  ungracious  if  it 
were  not  to  suggest  a  remedy — a  shady  mall  up  and  down  the 
middle !  What  a  beautiful  town  it  would  be — like  an  old-fash- 
ioned shirt  bosom,  \vith  a  frill  of  elms !  Your  children  would 
walk  safely  within  the  rails,  and  your  country  neighbors  would 
expose  their  "  sa'ace,"  and  cool  their  tired  oxen  in  the  shade. 
We  felt  ourselves  compensated  for  paying  nearly  double  price  for 
our  "  extra,"  by  the  remarkable  alacrity  with  which  the  coach 
came  to  the  door  after  the  bargain  was  concluded,  and  the  polite- 
ness with  which  the  "  gentleman  who  made  out  the  way-bill," 
acceded  to  our  stipulation.  He  bowed  us  off,  expressed  his 
happiness  to  serve  us,  and  away  we  went. 

The  Chenango,  one  of  the  largest  tributaries  to  the  Susquehan- 
nah,  began  to  show  itself,  like  a  small  brook,  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  miles  from  Utica.  Its  course  lay  directly  south,  and  the 
new  canal  kept  along  its  bank,  as  deserted,  but  a  thousand  times 
less  beautiful  in  its  loneliness,  than  the  river  whose  rambling 
curves  it  seemed  made  to  straighten.  We  were  not  in  the  best 
humor,  for  our  double-priced  "  extra"  turned  out  to  be  the  regu- 
lar stage ;  and,  while  we  were  delivering  and  waiting  for  mails, 
and  taking  in  passengers,  the  troop  of  idlers  at  tavern-doors 
cimused  themselves  with  reading  the  imaginative  production  called 
our  "  exir  \  way-bill,"  as  it  was  transferred,  with  a  sagacious  wink, 
fr<?  %  river's  hat  to  the  other.  I  thought  of  Paddy's  sedan- 


204  THE  FOUR  RIVERS. 


chair,  with  the  bottom  out.     "  If  it  were  not  for  the  name  of  the 
thing,"  said  he,  as  he  trotted  along  with  a  box  over  his  head. 

I  say  we  were  not  in  the  best  of  humors  with  our  prompt  and 
polite  friend  at  Utica,  but,  even  through  these  bilious  spectacles, 
the  Chenango  was  beautiful.  Its  valley  is  wide  and  wild,  and 
the  reaches  of  the  capricious  stream,  through  the  farms  and  woods 
along  which  it  loiters,  were  among  the  prettiest  effects  of  water 
scenery  I  have  ever  met.  There  is  a  strange  loneliness  about  it ; 
and  the  small  towns  which  were  sprinkled  along  the  hundred 
miles  of  its  course,  seem  rather  the  pioneers  into  a  western  wil- 
derness, than  settlements  so  near  the  great  thoroughfare  to  the 
lakes.  It  is  a  delicious  valley  to  travel  through,  barring  "  cordu- 
roy." Tre-men-dous !  exclaims  the  traveller,  as  the  coach  drops 
into  a  pit  between  two  logs,  and  surges  up  again — Heaven  only 
knows  how.  And,  as  my  fellow-passenger  remarked,  it  is  a 
wonder  the  road  does  not  echo — "  tree-mend-us  /" 

Five  miles  before  reaching  the  Susquehannah,  the  road  began 
to  mend,  the  hills  and  valleys  assumed  the  smile  of  cultivation, 
and  the  scenery  before  us  took  a  bolder  and  broader  outline 
The  Chenango  came  down  full  and  sunny  to  her  junction,  like 
the  bride,  who  is  most  lovely  when  just  losing  her  virgin  name, 
and  pouring  the  wealth  of  her  whole  existence  into  the  bosom 
of  another ;  and  untroubled  with  his  new  burden,  the  lordly  Sus- 
quehannah kept  on  his  majestic  way,  a  type  of  such  vainly- 
dreaded,  but  easily-borne  responsibilities. 

At  Binghamton,  we  turned  our  course  down  the  Susquehan- 
nah. This  delicious  word,  in  the  Indian  tongue,  describes  its 
peculiar  and  constant  windings  ;  and  I  venture  to  say  that  on  no 
river  in  the  world  are  the  grand  and  beautiful  in  scenery  so  glori- 


THE  SUSQUEHANNAH.  205 


ously  mixed.  The  road  to  Owego  follows  the  course  of  the  valley 
rather  than  of  the  river,  but  the  silver  curves  are  constantly  in 
view  ;  and,  from  every  slight  elevation,  the  majestic  windings  are 
seen — like  the  wanderings  of  a  vein,  gleaming  through  green 
fringes  of  trees,  and  circling  the  bright  islands  which  occasionally 
divide  their  waters.  It  is  a  swift  river,  and  singularly  living  and 
joyous  in  its  expression. 

At  Owego  there  is  a  remarkable  combination  of  bold  scenery 
and  habitable  plain.  One  of  those  small,  bright  rivers,  which 
are  called  "  creeks"  in  this  country,  comes  in  with  its  valley  at 
right  angles  to  the  vale  and  stream  of  the  Susquehannah,  form- 
ing a  star  with  three  rays,  or  a  plain  with  three  radiating  valleys, 
or  a  city,  (in  the  future,  perhaps,)  with  three  magnificent  exits  and 
entrances.  The  angle  is  a  round  mountain,  some  four  or  five 
hundred  feet  in  height,  which  kneels  fairly  down  at  the  meeting 
of  the  two  streams,  while  another  round  mountain,  of  an  easy 
acclivity,  lifts  gracefully  from  the  opposite  bank,  as  if  rising  from 
the  same  act  of  homage  to  Nature.  Below  the  town  and 
above  it,  the  mountains,  for  the  first  time,  give  in  to  the  exact 
shape  of  the  river's  short  and  capricious  course  ;  and  the  plain 
on  which  the  town  stands  is  enclosed  between  two  ampitheatres 
of  lofty  hills,  shaped  with  the  regularity  and  even  edge  of  a  coli- 
seum, and  resembling  the  two  halves  of  a  leaf-lined  vase,  struck 
apart  by  a  twisted  wand  of  silver. 

Owego  creek*  should  have  a  prettier  name,  for  its  small  vale 
is  the  soul  and  essence  of  loveliness.  A  meadow  of  a  mile  in 

*  The  author's  subsequent  residence  was  upoi  *hia  stream,  about  half  a 
mile  above  its  junction  with  the  Susqui'haunah. 


206  THE  FOUR  RIVERS. 


breadth,  fertile,  soft,  and  sprinkled  with  stately  trees,  furnishes  a 
bed  for  its  swift  windings  ;  and,  from  the  edge  of  this  new  Tempe, 
on  the  southern  side,  rise  three  steppes,  or  natural  terraces,  over  the 
highest  of  which  the  forest  rears  its  head,  and  looks  in  upon  the 
meeting  of  the  rivers,  while  down  the  sides,  terrace  by  terrace, 
leap  the  small  streamlets  from  the  mountain-springs,  forming 
each  again  its  own  smaller  dimple  in  this  loveliest  face  of  Nature. 
There  are  more  romantic,  wilder  places  than  this  in  the  world, 
but  none  on  earth  more  halritably  beautiful.  In  these  broad 
valleys,  where  the  grain-fields,  ana  the  meadows,  and  the  sunny 
farms,  are  walled  in  by  glorious  mountain  sides  -not  obtrusively 
near,  yet,  by  their  noble  and  wondrous  outlines,  giving  a  perpetual 
refreshment,  and  an  hourly-changing  feast  to  the  eye — in  these 
valleys,  a  man's  household  gods  yearn  for  an  altar.  Here  are 
mountains  that,  to  look  on  but  once,  "  become  a  feeling" — a  river 
at  whose  grandeur  to  marvel — and  a  hundred  streamlets  to  lace 
about  the  heart.  Here  are  fertile  fields,  nodding  with  grain  ;  "  a 
thousand  cattle"  grazing  on  the  hills — here  is  assembled  together, 
in  one  wondrous  centre,  a  specimen  of  every  most  loved  linea- 
mest  of  Nature.  Here  would  I  have  a  home  !  Give  me  a  cot- 
tage by  one  of  these  shining  streamlets — upon  one  of  these 
terraces,  that  seem  steps  to  Olympus ;  and  let  me  ramble  over 
these  mountain  sides,  while  my  flowers  are  growing,  and  my  head 
silvering  in  tranquil  happiness.  He  whose  Penates  would  not 
root  ineradicably  here,  has  no  heart  for  a  home,  nor  senses  for 
the  glory  nf  Nature  ! 


LETTER 

TO  THE  UNKNOWN  PURCHASER  AND  NEXT  OCCUPANT  OF  GLENMART.* 

SIR  :  In  selling  you  the  dew  and  sunshine  ordained  to  fall,  here- 
after, on  this  bright  spot  of  earth — the  waters  on  their  way  to  this 
sparkling  brook — the  tints  mixed  for  the  flowers  of  that  enamel- 
led meadow,  and  the  songs  bidden  to  be  sung  in  coming  summers 
by  the  feathery  builders  in  Glenmary,  I  know  not  whether  to 
wonder  more  at  the  omnipotence  of  money,  or  at  my  own  imper- 
tinent audacity  toward  Nature.  How  you  can  buy  the  right  to 
exclude,  at  will,  every  other  creature  made  in  God's  image,  from 
sitting  by  this  brook,  treading  on  that  carpet  of  flowers,  or  lying 
listening  to  the  birds  in  the  shade  of  these  glorious  trees — how  I 
can  sell  it  you,  is  a  mystery  not  understood  by  the  Indian,  and 
dark,.  I  must  say,  to  me. 

"  Lord  of  the  soil,"  is  a  title  which  conveys  your  privileges 
but  poorly.  You  are  master  of  waters  flowing,  at  this  moment, 
perhaps,  in  a  river  of  Judea,  or  floating  in  clouds  over  some 

*  Circumstances  compelled  the  author  to  give  up  his  hopes  of  seclusion, 
and  return  to  his  profession  in  the  city,  after  about  five  yeais'  residence  at 
Olenmary. 


208  LETTER. 


spicy  island  of  the  tropics,  bound  hither  after  many  changes. 
There  are  lilies  and  violets  ordered  for  you  in  millions,  acres  of 
sunshine  in  daily  instalments,  and  dew,  nightly,  in  proportion. 
There  are  throats  to  be  tuned  with  song,  and  wings  to  be  painted 
with  red  and  gold,  blue  and  yellow — thousands  of  them,  and  all 
tributaries  to  you.  Your  corn  is  ordered  to  be  sheathed  in  silk, 
and  lifted  high  to  the  sun.  Your  grain  is  to  be  duly  bearded 
and  stemmed.  There  is  perfume  distilling  for  your  clover,  and 
juices  for  your  grasses  and  fruits.  Ice  will  be  here  for  your 
wine,  shade  for  your  refreshment  at  noon,  breezes  and  showers 
and  snow-flakes ;  all  in  their  season,  and  all  "  deeded  to  you  for 
forty  dollars  the  acre  !  Gods  !  what  a  copyhold  of  p-operty  for 
a  fallen  world !" 

Mine  has  been  but  a  short  lease  of  this  lovely  and  well-en- 
dowed domain ;  (the  duration  of  a  smile  of  fortune,  five  years, 
scarce  longer  than  a  five-act  play ;)  but,  as  in  a  play  we  some- 
times live  through  a  life,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  lived  a  life 
at  Glenmary.  Allow  me  this,  and  then  you  must  allow  me  the 
privilege  of  those  who,  at  the  close  of  life,  leave  something  be- 
hind them :  that  of  writing  out  my  will.  Though  I  depart  this 
life,  I  would  fain,  like  others,  extend  my  ghostly  hand  into  the 
future ;  and,  if  wings  are  to  be  borrowed  or  stolen  where  I  go, 
you  may  rely  on  my  hovering  around  and  haunting  you,  in  visi- 
tations not  restricted  by  cock-crowing. 

Trying  to  look  at  Glenmary  through  your  eyes,  sir,  I  see,  too 
plainly,  that  I  have  not  shaped"  my  ways  as  if  expecting  a  suc- 
cessor in  my  lifetime.  I  did  not,  I  am  free  to  own.  I  thought 
to  have  shuffled  off  my  mortal  coil  tranquilly  here  ;  flitting,  at  last, 
in  company  with  some  troop  of  my  autumn  leaves,  or  some  bevy 


SPARE  THE  TREES. 


<uf  spring  blossoms,  or  with  snow  in  the  thaw — my  tenants  at  my 
back,  as  a  landlord  may  say.  I  have  counted  on  a  life-interest 
in  the  trees,  trimming  them  accordingly ;  and  in  the  squirrels  and 
birds,  encouraging  them  to  chatter  and  build  and  fear  nothing-* 
no  guns  permitted  on  the  premises.  I  have  had  my  will  of  thifc 
beautiful  stream.  I  have  carved  the  woods  into  a  shape  of  my 
liking.  I  have  propagated  the  despised  sumach  and  the  perse- 
cuted hemlock  and  "pizen  laurel."  And  "no  end  to  the  weeds 
dug  up  and  set  out  again,"  as  one  of  my  neighbors  delivers  him- 
self. I  have  built  a  bridge  over  Glenmary  brook,  which  the 
town  looks  to  have  kept  up  by  "  the  place,"  and  we  have  plied 
free  ferry  over  the  river,  I  and  my  man  Tom,  till  the  neighbors, 
from  the  daily  saving  of  the  two  miles  round,  have  got  the  trick 
of  it.  And,  betwixt  the  aforesaid  Glenmary  brook  and  a  certain 
muddy  and  plebeian  gutter  formerly  permitted  to  join  company 
with,  and  pollute  it,  I  have  procured  a  divorce  at  much  trouble 
and  pains — a  guardian  duty  entailed  of  course  on  my  suc- 
cessor. 

First  of  all,  sir,  let  me  plead  for  the  old  trees  of  Glenmary  I 
Ah !  those  friendly  old  trees  !  The  cottage  stands  belted  in  with 
them — a  thousand  visible  from  the  door — and  with  stems  and 
branches  worthy  of  the  great  valley  of  the  Susquehannah.  For 
how  much  music,  played  without  thanks,  am  I  indebted  to  those 
leaf-organs  of  changing  tones  ?  for  how  many  whisperings  of 
thought  breathed  like  oracles  in  my  ear?  for  how  many  new  shapes 
of  beauty  moulded  in  the  leaves  by  the  wind  ?  for  how  much  com- 
panionship, solace,  and  welcome  ?  Steadfast  and  constant  is  the 
countenance  of  such  friends — God  be  praised  for  their  staid  wel- 
come and  sweet  fidelity  !  If  I  lovs  them  better  than  some  things 


210  LETTER. 


human,  it  is  no  fault  of  ambitiousness  in  the  trees.  They  stand 
where  they  did.  But,  in  recoiling  from  mankind,  one  may  find 
them  the  next  kindliest  things ;  and  be  glad  of  dumb  friendship. 
Spare  those  old  trees,  gentle  sir ! 

In  the  smooth  walk  which  encircles  the  meadow,  betwixt  that 
solitary  Olympian  sugar-maple  and  the  margin  of  the  river,  dwells 
a  portly  and  venerable  toad,  who,  (if  I  may  venture  to  bequeath 
you  my  friends,)  must  be  commended  to  your  kindly  consideration. 
Though  a  squatter,  he  was  noticed  in  our  first  rambles  along  the 
stream,  five  years  since,  for  his  ready  civility  in  yielding  the  way ; 
not  hurriedly,  however,  nor  with  an  obsequiousness  unbecoming 
a  republican,  but  deliberately  and  just  enough ;  sitting  quietly 
on  the  grass  till  our  passing  by  gave  him  room  again  on  the  warm 
and  trodden  ground.  Punctually,  after  the  April  cleansing  of 
the  walk,  this  "jewelled"  habitue,  from  his  indifferent  lodgings  hard 
by,  emerges  to  take  his  pleasure  in  the  sun ;  and  there,  at  any 
hour  when  a  gentleman  is  likely  to  be  abroad,  you  may  find  him, 
patient  on  his  os  coccygis,  or  vaulting  to  his  asylum  of  high  grass. 
This  year,  he  shows,  I  am  grieved  to  remark,  an  ominous  obesity, 
likely  to  render  him  obnoxious  to  the  female  eye  ;  and,  with  the 
trimness  of  his  shape,  has  departed  much  of  that  measured 
alacrity  which  first  won  our  regard.  He  presumes  a  little  on 
your  allowance  for  old  age ;  and,  with  this  pardonable  weakness  v 
growing  upon  him,  it  seems  but  right  that  his  position  and  stand- 
ing should  be  tenderly  made  known  to  any  new-comer  on  the 
premises.  In  the  cutting  of  the  next  grass,  slice  me  not  up  my 
fat  friend,  sir !  nor  set  your  cane  down  heedlessly  in  his  modest 
domain.  He  is  "  mine  ancient,"  and  I  would  fain  do  him  a  good 
turn  with  you. 


SPARE   THE  BIRDS.  211 


For  my  spoiled  family  of  squirrels,  sir  ,  I  crave  nothing  but  im- 
munity from  powder  and  shot.  They  require  coaxing  to  come 
on  the  same  side  of  the  tree  with  you;  and,  though  saucy  to  me, 
I  observe  that  they  commence  acquaintance  invariably  with  a  safe 
mistrust.  One  or  two  of  them  have  suffered,  it  is  true,  from  toe 
hasty  a  confidence  in  my  greyhound,  Maida,  but  the  beauty  of 
that  gay  fellow  was  a  trap  against  which  Nature  had  furnished 
them  with  no  warning  instinct !  (A  fact,  sir,  which  would  pret- 
tily point  a  moral !)  The  large  hickory  on  the  edge  of  the  lawn, 
and  the  black  walnut  over  the  shoulder  of  the  flower-garden, 
have  been,  through  my  dynasty,  sanctuaries  inviolate  for  squir- 
rels. I  pray  you,  sir,  let  them  not  be  "  reformed  out,"  under 
your  administration. 

Of  our  feathered  connections  and  friends,  we  are  most  bound 
to  a  pair  of  Phebe-birds  and  a  merry  bob-o-link — the  first 
occupying  the  top  of  the  young  maple  near  the  door  of  the  cot- 
tage, and  the  latter  executing  his  bravuras  upon  the  clump  of 
alder-bushes  in  the  meadow ;  though,  in  common  with  many  a 
gay-plumaged  gallant  like  himself,  his  whereabout  after  dark  is 
a  mystery.  He  comes,  every  year,  from  his  rice  plantation 
in  Florida,  to  pass  the  summer  at  Glenmary.  Pray  keep  him 
safe  from  percussion- caps,  and  let  no  urchin  with  a  long  pole 
poke  down  our  trusting  Phebes ;  annuals  in  that  same  tree  for 
three  summers.  There  are  humming-birds,  too,  whom  we  have 
complimented  and  looked  sweet  upon,  but  they  can  not  be  identi- 
fied from  morning  to  morning.  And  there  is  a  golden  oriole  who 
sings,  through  May,  on  a  dog- wood  tree  by  the  brook-side ;  but  he 
has  fought  shy  of  our  crumbs  and  coaxing,  and  let  him  go !  We 
are  mates  for  his  betters,  with  all  his  gold  livery  !  With  these 


212  LETTER. 


reservations,  sir,  I  commend  the  birds  to  your  friendship  and  kind 
keeping. 

And  now,  sir,  I  have  nothing  else  to  ask,  save  only  your 
watchfulness  over  the  small  nook  reserved  from  this  purchase  of 
seclusion  and  loveliness.  In  the  shady  depths  of  the  small  glen 
above  you,  among  the  wild  flowers  and  music — the  music  of  the 
brook  babbling  over  rocky  steps— is  a  spot  sacred  to  love  and 
memory.  Keep  it  inviolate,  and  as  much  of  the  happiness  of 
Glenmary  as  we  can  leave  behind,  stay  with  you  for  recompense  ! 


GLENMARY   POEMS. 


[As  other  exponents  of  the  influences  under  which  the  foregoing  portion 
jf  the  author's  writings  were  penned,  perhaps  the  four  following  poems, 
written  amid  the  seclusion  of  Glenmary,  should  rather  be  introduced  here 
than  elsewhere  in  his  works.] 


THOUGHTS 

WHILE  MAKING  THE  GRAVE    OF  A  NEW-BORN  CHILD. 

ROOM,  gentle  flowers !  my  child  would  pass  to  heaven ! 

Ye  look'd  not  for  her  yet,  with  your  soft  eyes, 

Oh,  watchful  ushers  at  Death's  narrow  door ! 

But  lo  !  while  you  delay  to  let  her  forth, 

Angels,  beyond,  stay  for  her !     One  long  kiss, 

From  lips  all  pale  with  agony,  and  tears, 

Wrung  after  anguish  had  dried  up  with  fire 

The  eyes  that  wept  them,  were  the  cup  of  life 

Held  as  a  welcome  to  her.    Weep !  oh  mother ! 

But  not  that  from  this  cup  of  bitterness 

A  cherub  of  the  sky  has  turned  away. 

One  look  upon  thy  face  ere  thou  depart ! 

My  daughter !  it  is  soon  to  let  thee  go ! 

My  daughter !  with  thy  birth  has  gush'd  a  spring 

I  knew  not  of — filling  my  heart  with  tears, 

And  turning  with  strange  tenderness  to  thee — 

A  love — oh  God  !  it  seems  so — that  must  flow 


216  GLENMARY  POEMS. 


Far  as  thou  fleest,  and,  'twixt  heaven*  and  me, 

Henceforward,  be  a  bright  and  yearning  chain 

Drawing  me  after  thee !     And  so,  farewell ! 

'Tis  a  harsh  world,  in  which  affection  knows 

"No  place  to  treasure  up  its  loved  and  lost 

But  the  foul  grave !     Thou,  who,  so  late,  wast  sleeping 

Warm  in  the  close  fold  of  a  mother's  heart, 

Scarce  from  her  breast  a  single  pulse  receiving 

But  it  was  sent  thee  with  some  tender  thought, 

How  can  I  leave  thee — here  !    Alas  for  man ! 

The  herb  in  its  humility  may  fall, 

And  waste  into  the  bright  and  genial  air, 

While  we — by  hands  that  minister'd  in  life 

Nothing  but  love  to  us — are  thrust  away — 

The  earth  flung  in  upon  our  just  cold  bosoms, 

And  the  warm  sunshine  trodden  out  forever ! 

Yet  I  have  chosen  for  thy  grave,  my  child, 
A  bank  where  I  have  lain  hi  summer  hours, 
And  thought  how  little  it  would  seem  like  death 
To  sleep  amid  such  loveliness.     The  brook, 
Tripping  with  laughter  down  the  rocky  steps 
That  lead  up  to  thy  bed,  would  still  trip  on, 
Breaking  the  dread  hush  of  the  mourners  gone ; 
The  birds  are  never  silent  that  build  here, 
Trying  to  sing  down  the  more  vocal  waters ; 
The  slope  is  beautiful  with  moss  and  flowers, 
And  far  below,  seen  under  arching  leaves, 
Glitters  the  warm  sun  on  the  village  spire, 


GLENMARY  POEMS.  217 


Pointing  the  living  after  thee.     And  this 
Seems  like  a  comfort ;  and,  replacing  now 
The  flowers  that  have  made  room  for  thee,  I  go 
To  whisper  the  same  peace  to  her  who  lies — 
Robb'd  of  her  child  and  lonely.     'Tis  the  work 
Of  many  a  dark  hour,  and  of  many  a  prayer, 
To  bring  the  heart  back  from  an  infant  gone. 
Hope  must  give  o'er,  and  busy  fancy  blot 
The  images  from  all  the  silent  rooms  ; 
And  every  sight  and  sound  familiar  to  her 
Undo  its  sweetest  link — and  so  at  last 
The  fountain — that,  once  struck,  must  flow  forever- 
Will  hide  and  waste  in  silence.     When  the  smile 
Steals  to  her  pallid  lip  again,  and  Spring 
Wakens  the  buds  above  thee,  we  will  come, 
And,  standing  by  thy  music-haunted  grave, 
Look  on  each  other  cheerfully,  and  say : 
A  child  that  we  have  loved  is  gone  to  Jieaven, 
And  by  this  gate  of  flowers  she  pass'd  away/ 


VOL.  i.  10 


THE  INVOLUNTAKY  PRAYER  OF 
HAPPINESS. 

I  HAVE  enough,  oh  God !     My  heart,  to-night, 
Runs  over  with  its  fullness  of  content ; 
And,  as  I  look  out  on  the  fragrant  stars, 
And  from  the  beauty  of  the  night  take  in 
My  priceless  portion — yet  myself  no  more 
Than  in  the  universe  a  grain  of  sand — 
I  feel  His  glory  who  could  make  a  world, 
Yet,  in  the  lost  depths  of  the  wilderness, 
Leave  not  a  flower  imperfect ! 

Rich,  though  poor  I 

My  low-roofed  cottage  is,  this  hour,  a  heaven 
Music  is  in  it — and  the  song  she  sings, 
That  sweet- voic'd  wife  of  mine,  arrests  the  ear 
Of  my  young  child,  awake  upon  her  knee  ; 
And,  with  his  calm  eye  on  his  master's  face, 
My  noble  hound  lies  couchant :  and  all  here — 
All  in  this  little  home,  yet  boundless  heaven — 
Are,  in  such  love  as  I  have  power  to  give, 
Blessed  to  overflowing ! 


GLENMARY  POEMS.  210 


God !  who  gavest 

Into  my  guiding  hand  this  wanderer, 
To  lead  her  through  a  world  whose  darkling  paths 
I  tread  with  steps  so  faltering — leave  not  me 
To  bring  her  to  the  gates  of  heaven,  alone  ! 
I  feel  my  feebleness.    Let  these  stay  on — 
The  angels  who  now  visit  her  in  dreams ! 
Bid  them  be  near  her  pillow  till  in  death 
The  closed  eyes  look  upon  thy  face  once  more  1 
And  let  the  light  and  music,  which  the  wortd 
Borrows  of  heaven,  and  which  her  infant  sense 
Hails  with  sweet  recognition,  be,  to  her, 
A  voice  to  call  her  upward,  and  a  lamp 
To  lead  her  steps  unto  Thee ! 


A  THOUGHT  OVER  A  CRADLE 

I  SADDEN  when  thou  smilest  to  my  smile, 
Child  of  my  love  !    I  tremble  to  believe 
Ihat,  o'er  the  mirror  of  that  eye  of  blue, 
The  shadow  of  my  heart  will  always  pass ; 
A  heart  that,  from  its  struggle  with  the  world, 
Comes  nightly  to  thy  guarded  cradle  home, 
And,  careless  of  the  staining  dust  it  brings, 
Asks  for  its  idol !     Strange,  that  flowers  of  earth 
Are  visited  by  every  air  that  stirs, 
And  drink  in  sweetness  only,  while  the  child, 
That  shuts  within  its  breast  a  bloom  for  heaven, 
May  take  a  blemish  from  the  breath  of  love, 
And  bear  the  blight  forever. 

I  have  wept 

With  gladness  at  the  gift  of  this  fair  child ! 
My  life  is  bound  up  in  her.     But,  oh  God ! 
Thou  know'st  how  heavily  my  heart  at  times 
Bears  its  sweet  burthen ;  and  if  thou  hast  given, 


GLENMARY  POEMS.  .  221 


To  nurture  such  as  mine,  this  spotless  flower, 

To  bring  it  unpolluted  unto  thee, 

Take  thou  its  love,  I  pray  thee !     Give  it  light — 

Though,  following  the  sun,  it  turn  from  me ! — 

But,  by  the  chord  thus  wrung,  and  by  the  light 

Shining  about  her,  draw  me  to  my  child  ! 

And  link  us  close,  oh  God,  when  near  to  heaven ! 


THE  MOTHER  TO  HER  CHILD. 

THEY  tell  me  thou  art  come  from  a  far  world, 
Babe  of  my  bosom  !  that  these  little  arms, 
Whose  restlessness  is  l&e  the  spread  of  wings, 
Move  with  the  msmory  of  flights  scarce  o'er—- 
That through  ttese  fringed  lids  we  see  the  soul 
Steep'd  in  tho  bfce  of  its  remembered  home ; 
And,  while  thou  sleep 'st,  come  messengers,  they  say, 
Whispering  to  thee — and  'tis  then  I  see, 
Upon  thy  baby  lips,  that  smile  of  heaven ! 

And  what  is  thy  far  errand,  my  fair  child ! 
Why  away,  wandering  from  a  home  of  bliss, 
To  find  thy  way  through  darkness  home  again ! 
Wert  thou  an  untried  dweller  in  the  sky  ? 
Is  there,  betwixt  the  cherub  that  thou  wert — 
The  cherub  and  the  angel  thou  mayst  be — 
A  life's  probation  in  this  sadder  world  ? 
Art  thou,  with  memory  of  two  things  only, 
Music  and  light,  left  upon  earth  astray, 
And,  by  the  watchers  at  the  gate  of  heaven, 
Looked  for  with  fear  and  trembling  ? 


GLENMARY  POEMS.  223 


Thou,  who  look'st 

Upon  my  brimming  heart  this  tranquil  eve, 
Knowest  its  fullness,  as  thou  dost  the  dew 
Sent  to  the  hidden  violet  by  Thee  ! 
And,  as  that  flower,  from  its  unseen  abode, 
Sends  its  sweet  breath  up  duly  to  the  sky, 
Changing  its  gift  to  incense — so,  oh  God ! 
May  the  sweet  drops,  that  to  my  humble  cup 
Find  their  far  way  from  heaven,  send  back,  in  prayer, 
Fragrance  at  thy  throne  welcome  I 


OPEN-AIK    MUSINGS 


IN    THE    CITY 


MUSINGS. 

FROM  the  window  at  which  I  sit,  I  look  directly  on  the  most 
frequented  portion  in  Broadway — the  sidewalk  in  front  of 
St.  Paul's.  You  walk  over  it  every  day.  Familiarity  with 
most  things  alters  their  aspect,  however.  Let  me,  after  long  ac- 
quaintance with  this  bit  of  sidewalk,*  sketch  how  it  looks  to  me  at 
the  various  hours  of  the  day.  I  may  jot  down,  also,  one  or  two 
trifles  I  have  observed  while  looking  into  the  street  in  the  inter- 
vals of  writing. 

Eiylit  in  the  morning. — The  sidewalk  is  comparatively  deserted. 
The  early  clerks  have  gone  by,  and  the  bookkeepers  and  younger 
partners  not  being  abroad,  the  current  sets  no  particular  way.  A 
vigorous  female  exerciser  or  two  may  be  seen  returning  from  a 
smart  walk  to  the  Battery,  and  the  orange-women  are  getting 
their  tables  ready  at  the  corners.  There  is  to  be  a  funeral  in  the 
course  of  the  day  in  St.  Paul's  church-yard,  and  one  or  two  boys 
are  on  the  coping  of  the  iron  fence,  watching  the  grave-digger. 
Seamstresses  and  schol mistresses,  with  veils  down,  in  impenetra- 
ble incognito,  hurry  by  with  a  step  which  says  unmistakeably, 
"  Don't  look  at  me  in  this  dress  !"  The  return  omnibuses  come 
from  Wall  street  empty,  on  a  walk. 


228  MUSINGS. 


Nine  and  after. — A  rapid  throng  of  well-dressed  men,  all  walk- 
ing smartly,  and  all  bound  Mammon- ward.  Glanced  at  vaguely, 
the  sidewalk  seems  like  a  floor  with  a  swarm  of  black  beetles  run- 
ning races  across  it.  The  single  pedestrians  who  are  struggling 
up  stream,  keep  close  to  the  curbstone  or  get  rudely  jostled.  The 
omnibuses  all  stop  opposite  St.  Paul's  at  this  hour,  letting  out 
passengers,  who  invariably  start  on  a  trot  down  Ann  street  or 
Fulton.  The  Museum  people  are  On  the  top  of  the  building 
drawing  their  flags  across  Broadway  and  Ann,  by  pulleys  fastened 
to  trees  and  chimneys.  Burgess  and  Stringer  hanging  out  their 
literary  placards,  with  a  listless  deliberation,  as  if  nobody  was 
abroad  yet  who  had  leisure  to  read  them. 

Twelve  and  after. — Discount-seekers  crowding  into  the  Chem- 
ical Bank  with  hats  over  their  eyes.  Flower-merchants  setting 
their  pots  of  roses  and  geraniums  along  the  iron  fence.  The 
blind  beggar  arrived-,  and  set  with  his  back  agciinst  the  church 
gate  by  an  old  woman.  And  now  the  streaks,  drawn  across  my 
side  vision  by  the  passers  under,  glide  at  a  more  leisurely  pace, 
and  are  of  gayer  hues.  The  street  full  of  sunshine.  Omnibuses 
going  slowly,  both  ways.  Female  exclusives  gliding  to  and  fro 
in  studiously  plain  dresses,  and  with  very  occupied  air — (never  in 
Broadway  without  "  the  carriage,"  of  course,  except  to  shop.) 
Strangers  sprinkled  in  couples,  exhausting  their  strength  and 
spirits  by  promenading  before  the  show  hour.  The  grave  dug  in 
St.  Paul's,  and  the  grave-digger  gone  home  to  dinner.  Woman 
run  over  at  the  Fulton  crossing.  Boys  out  of  school.  Tombs' 
bell  ringing  fire  in  the  third  district. 

One  and  after. — The  ornamentals  are  abroad.     A  crowd  on  St, 


BROADWAY.  229 


Paul's  sidewalk,  watching  the  accomplished  canary-bird,  whose 
cage  hangs  on  the  fence.  He  draws  his  seed  and  water  up  an 
inclined  plane  in  a  rail-car,  and  does  his  complicated  feeding  to 
the  great  approbation  of  his  audience.  The  price  is  high — his 
value  being  in  proportion  (aristocracy-wise)  to  his  wants  !  It  is 
the  smoothest  and  broadest  sidewalk  in  Broadway — the  frontage 
of  St.  Paul's — and  the  ladies  and  dandies  walk  most  at  their  ease 
just  here,  loitering  a  little,  perhaps,  to  glance  at  the  flowers  for 
sale.  My  window,  commanding  this  pave,  is  a  particularly  good 
place,  therefore,  to  study  street  habits,  and  I  have  noted  a  trifle 
or  so,  that,  if  not  new,  may  be  newly  put  down.  I  observe  that  a 
very  well-dressed  woman  is  noticed  by  none  so  much  as  by  the 
women  themselves.  This  is  the  week  for  the  first  spring  dresses, 
and,  to-day,  there  is  a  specimen  or  two  of  Miss  Lawson's  April  ava~ 
tar,  taking  its  first  sun  on  the  promenade.  A  lady  passed,  just  now, 
with  a  charming  straw  hat  and  primrose  shawl — not  a  very  pretty 
woman,  but,  dress  and  all,  a  fresh  and  sweet  object  to  look  at — 
like  a  new-blown  cowslip,  that  stops  you  in  your  walk,  though  it 
is  not  a  violet.  Not  a  male  eye  observed  her,  from  curb -stone 
in  Vesey  to  curb-stone  in  Fulton,  but  every  ivoman  turned  to  look 
after  her !  Query,  is  this  the  notice  of  envy  or  admiration ;  and, 
if  the  former,  is  it  desirable  or  worth  the  pains  and  money  of 
toilet?  Query,  again — the  men's  notice  being  admiration  (not 
envy)  what  will  attract  it,  and  is  that  (whatever  it  is)  worth 
while  ?  I  query  what  I  should,  myself,  like  to  know. 

Half  past  three. — The  sidewalk  is  in  shade.  The  orange-man 
sits  on  a  lemon-box,  with  his  legs  and  arms  all  crossed  together 
in  his  lap,  listening  to  the  band  who  have  just  commenced  play- 
irg  in  the  Museum  balcony.  The  principal  listeners,  who  have 


230  MUSINGS. 


stopped  for  nothing  but  to  listen,  are  ihree  negro  boys,  (one  sit- 
ting on  the  Croton  hydrant,  and  the  other  two  leaning  on  his 
back,)  and  to  them  this  gratuitous  music  seems  a  charming  dis- 
pensation. (Tune,  "  Ole  Dan  Tucker.")  The  omnibus  horse* 
prick  up  their  ears  in  going  under  the  trumpets,  but  evidently  feel 
that  to  show  fright  would  be  a  luxury  beyond  their  means.  Sad- 
dle-horse, tied  at  the  bank,  breaks  bridle  and  runs  away.  Three 
is  universal  dinner  time  for  tosses — (what  other  word  expresses 
the  head  men  of  all  trades  and  professions?) — and  probably 
not  a  single  portly  man  will  pass  under  my  window  in  this 
hour. 

Four  to  five. — Sidewalk  more  crowded.  Hotel  boarders 
lounging  along  with  toothpicks.  Stout  men  going  down  toward 
Wall  street  with  coats  unbuttoned.  Hearse  stopped  at  St.  Paul's, 
and  the  Museum  band  playing,  "  Take  your  time,  Miss  Lucy," 
while  the  mourners  are  getting  out.  A  gentleman,  separated  from 
two  ladies  by  the  passing  of  the  coffin  across  the  sidewalk,  rejoins 
them,  apparently  with  some  funny  remark.  Bell  tolls.  JN"o  one 
in  the  crowd  is  interested  to  inquire  the  age  or  sex  of  the  person 
breaking  the  current  of  Broadway  to  pass  to  the  grav"e.  Hearse 
drives  off  on  a  trot. 

Five  and  after. — Broadway  one  gay  procession.  Few  ladies 
accompanied  by  gentlemen — fewer  than  in  the  promenades  of 
any  other  country.  Men  in  couples  and  women  in  couples. 
Dandies  strolling  and  stealing  an  occasional  look  at  their  loose 
demi-saison  pantaloons  and  gaiter-shoes,  newly  sported  with  the 
sudden  advent  of  warm  weather.  No  private  carriage  passing, 
except  those  bound  to  the  ferries  for  a  drive  into  the  country. 
The  crowd  is  unlike  the  morning  crowd.  There  is  as  much  or 


BROADWAY  231 


more  beauty,  but  the  fashionable  ladies  are  not  out.  You  would 
be  puzzled  to  discover  who  these  lovely  women  are.  Their  toilets 
are  unexceptionable,  their  style  is  a  very  near  approach  to  comme 
il  faut.  They  look  perfectly  satisfied  with  their  position  and  with 
themselves,  and  they  do — (what  fashionable  women  do  not) — meet 
the  eye  of  the  promenader  with  a  coquettish  confidence  he  will 
misinterpret — if  he  be  green  or  a  puppy.  Among  these  ladies 
are  accidents  of  feature,  form,  and  manner — charms  of  which 
the  possessor  is  unconscious — that,  if  transplanted  into  a  high- 
bred sphere  of  society  abroad,  would  be  bowed  to  as  the  stamp 
of  lovely  aristocracy.  Possibly — probably,  indeed — the  very 
woman  who  is  a  marked  instance  of  this,  is  not  called  pretty  by 
her  friends.  She  is  only  spoken  to  by  those  whose  taste  is  com- 
monplace and  unrefined.  She  walks  Broadway,  and  has  a  vague 
suspicion  that  the  men  of  fashion  look  at  her  more  admiringly 
than  could  be  accounted  for  by  any  credit  she  has  for  beauty  at 
home.  Yet  she  is  not  likely  to  be  enlightened  as  to  the  secret  of  it. 
When  tired  of  her  promenade,  she  disappears  by  some  side-street 
leading  away  from  the  great  thoroughfares,  and  there  is  no  clue 
to  her  unless  by  inquiries  that  would  be  properly  resented  as  im- 
pertinence. I  see  at  least  twenty  pass  daily  under  my  window, 
who  would  be  ornaments  of  any  society,  yet  who,  I  know,  (by  the 
men  I  see  occasionally  with  them,)  are  unacknowledgable  by  the 
aristocrats  up  town.  What  a  field  for  a  Columbus!  How 
charming  to  go  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  and  search  for  these 
unprized  pearls  among  the  unconscious  pebbles  !  How  delightful 
to  see  these  rare  plants  without  hedges  about  them — exquisite 
women  without  frisliionable  affectations,  fashionable  hindrances, 
penalties,  exactions,  pretensions,  and  all  the  wearying  nonsenses 


232  MUSINGS. 


that  embarrass  and  stupefy  the  society  of  most  of  our  female 
pretenders  to  exclusiveness ! 

Half -past  six  and  after. — The  flower-seller  loading  up  his  pots 
into  a  fragrant  wagon-load.  Twilight's  rosy  mist  falling  into  the 
street.  Gas-lamps  alight,  here  and  there.  The  Museum  band 
increased  by  two  instruments,  to  play  more  noisily  for  the  night- 
Custom.  The  magic  wheel  lit  up,  and  ground  rather  capriciously 
by  the  tired  boy  inside.  The  gaudy  transparencies  one  by  one 
illuminated.  Great  difference  now  in  the  paces  at  which  people 
walk.  Business-men  bound  home,  apprentices  and  shop-boys 
carrying  parcels,  ladies  belated — are  among  the  hurrying  ones. 
Gentlemen  strolling  for  amusement  take  it  very  leisurely,  and  with 
a  careless  gait  that  is  more  graceful  and  becoming  than  their 
mien  of  circumspect  daylight.  And  now  thicken  the  flaunting 
dresses  of  the  unfortunate  outlaws  of  charity  and  pity.  Some 
among  them  (not  many)  have  a  remainder  of  lady-likeness  in 
their  gait,  as  if,  but  for  the  need  there  is  to  attract  attention,  they 
could  seem  modest — but  the  most  of  them  are  promoted  to  fine 
dress  from  sculleries  and  low  life,  and  show  their  shameless  vul- 
garity through  silk  and  feathers.  They  are  not  all  to  be  pitied. 
The  gentleman  cit  passes  them  by  like  the  rails  in  St.  Paul's 
fence — wholly  unnoticed.  If  he  is  vicious,  it  is  not  those  in  the 
street  who  could  attract  him.  The  "  loafers"  return  their  bold 
looks,  and  the  boys  pull  their  dresses  as  they  go  along,  and  now 
und  then  a  greenish  youth,  well-dressed,  shows  signs  of  being 
attracted.  Sailors,  rowdies,  country-people,  and  strangers  who 
have  dined  freely,  are  those  whose  steps  are  arrested  by  them. 
It  is  dark  now.  The  omnibuses,  that  were  heavily  laden  through 
the  twilight,  now  go  more  noisily,  because  lighter.  Carriages 


BROADWAY.  233 


make  their  way  toward  the  Park  theatre.  My  window  shows 
but  the  two  lines  of  lamps  and  the  glittering  shops,  and  all  else 
vaguely. 


I  have  repeatedly  taken  five  minutes,  at  a  time,  to  pick  out 
a  well-dressed  man,  and  see  if  he  would  walk  from  Fulton  street 
to  Yesey  without  getting  a  look  at  his  boots.  You  might  safely 
bet  against  it.  If  he  is  an  idle  man,  and  out  only  for  a  walk, 
wo  to  one  he  would  glance  downward  to  his  feet  three  or  four 
jrnes  in  that  distance.  Men  betray  their  subterfuges  of  toilet — 
women  never.  Once  in  the  street,  women  are  armed  at  all  points 
against  undesirable  observation — men  have  an  ostrich's  obtusity, 
being  wholly  unconscious  even  of  that  battery  of  critics,  a  passing 
omnibus !  How  many  substitutes  and  secrets  of  dress  a  woman 
carries  about  her,  the  angels  know ! — but  she  looks  defiance  to 
suspicion  on  that  subject.  Sit  in  my  window,  on  the  contrary, 
and  you  can  pick  out  every  false  shirt-bosom  that  passes,  and 
every  pair  of  false  wristbands,  and  the  dandy's  economical  half- 
boots,  gaiter-cut  trowsers  notwithstanding. 

Indeed,  while  it  is  always  difficult,  sometimes  impossible,  to 
distinguish  female  genuine  from  the  imitation,  nothing  is  easier 
than  to  know  at  sight  the  "glossed  (male)  worsted  from  the 
patrician  sarsnet."  The  "  fashion"  of  women,  above  a  certain 
guide,  can  seldom  be  guessed  at  in  the  street,  except  by  the  men 
who  are  with  them. 

You  should  sit  in  a  window  like  mine,  to  know  how  few  m?n 
walk  with  even  passaVle  grace.  Nothing  so  corrupts  the  gait  as 


234  MUSINGS. 


business — (a  fact  that  would  be  offensive  to  mention  in  a  purely 
business  country,  if  it  were  not  that  the  "  unmannerly  haste"  of 
parcel-bearing  and  money-seeking,  may  be  laid  aside  with  low- 
heeled  boots  and  sample  cards.)  The  bent-kneed  celerity,  learned 
in  dodging  clerks  and  jumping  over  boxes  on  sidewalks,  be- 
trays its  trick  in  the  gait,  as  the  face  shows  the  pucker  of  calcu- 
lation and  the  suavity  of  sale.  I  observe  that  the  man  used  to 
hurry,  relies  principally  on  his  heel,  and  keeps  his  foot  at  right 
angles.  The  ornamental  man  drops  his  toe  slightly  downward  in 
taking  a  step,  and  uses,  for  elasticity,  the  spring  of  his  instep. 
Nature  has  provided  muscles  of  grace  which  are  only  incorpora- 
ted into  the  gait  by  habitually  walking  with  leisure.  All  women 
walk  with  comparative  grace  who  are  not  cramped  with  tight 
shoes,  but  there  are  many  degrees  of  gracefulness  in  women,  and 
oh,  what  a  charm  is  the  highest  degree  of  it !  How  pleasurable 
even  to  see  from  my  window  a  woman  walking  like  a  queen ! 


The  February  rehearsal  of  spring  is  over — the  popular  play  of 
April  having  been  well  represented  by  the  reigning  stars  and 
that  pleasant  company  of  players,  the  Breezes.  The  drop-curtain 
has  fallen,  representing  a  winter-scene,  principally  clouds  and 
snow,  and  the  beauties  of  the  dress-circle  have  retired  (from 
Broadway)  discontented  only  with  the  beauty  of  the  piece.  By- 
the-way,  the  acting  was  so  true  to  Nature,  that  several  trees  in 
Broadway  were  affected  to — budding  ! 

"  Ah,  friends,  methinks  it  were  a  pleasant  sphere, 
If,  like  the  trees,  we  budded  every  year  1 


SPRING  IN  THE  CITY. 

If  locks  grew  thick  again,  and  rosy  dyes 
Returned  in  cheeks,  a  raciness  in  eyes, 
And  all  around  us  vital  to  their  tips, 
The  human  orchard  laughed  with  rosy  lips." 

So  says  Leigh  Hunt. 

February  should  be  called  the  month  of  hope,  for  it  is  invariably 
more  enjoyable  than  the  first  nominal  fruition — more  spring-like 
than  the  first  month  of  Spring.  This  is  a  morning  that  makes 
the  hand  open  and  the  fingers  spread — a  morning  that  should  be 
consecrated  to  sacred  idleness.  I  should  like  to  exchange  work 
with  any  out-of-doors  man — even  with  a  driver  of  an  omnibus — 
specially  with  the  farmer  tinkering  his  fences.  Cities  are  conve- 
nient places  of  refuge  from  winter  and  bad  weather,  but  one  longs 
to  get  out  into  the  country,  like  a  sheep  from  a  shed,  with  the 
first  warm  gleam  of  sunshine. 


March  made  an  expiring  effort  to  give  us  a  spring-day  yester- 
day. The  morning  dawned  mild  and  bright,  and  there  was  a 
voluptuous  contralto  in  the  cries  of  the  milkmen  and  the  sweeps, 
which,  satisfied  me,  before  I  was  out  of  bed,  that  there  was  an 
arrival  of  a  south  wind.  The  Chinese  proverb  says,  "  when  thou 
hast  a  day  to  be  idle,  be  idle  for  a  day  ;"  but  for  that  very 
elusive  "  time  when,"  I  irresistibly  substitute  the  day  the  wind 
sweetens,  after  a  sour  northeaster.  Oh,  the  luxury  (or  curse,  as 
the  case  may  be)  of  breakfasting  leisurely  with  an  idle  day  before 
one! 

I  strolled  up  Broadwaj  between  nine  and  ten,  and  encountered 


236  MUSINGS. 


the  morning  tide  down  •  and'if  you  never  have  studied  the  physi- 
ognomy of  this  great  thoroughfare  in  its  various  fluxes  and  re- 
fluxes, the  differences  would  amuse  you.  The  clerks  and  workies 
have  passed  down  an  hour  before  the  nine  o'clock  tide,  and  the 
sidewalk  is  filled  at  this  time  with  bankers,  brokers,  and  specula- 
tors, bound  to  Wall  Street ;  old  merchants  and  junior  partners, 
bound  to  Pearl  and  Water ;  and  lawyers,  young  and  old,  bound 
for  Nassau  and  Pine.  Ah,  the  faces  of  care !  The  day's  opera- 
tions are  working  out  in  their  eyes ;  their  hats  are  pitched  forward 
at  the  angle  of  a  stage-coach,  with  all  the  load  on  the  driver's 
seat ;  their  shoulders  are  raised  with  the  shrug  of  anxiety  ;  their 
steps  are  hurried  and  short,  and  mortal  face  and  gait  could 
scarcely  express  a  heavier  burden  of  solicitude  than  every  man 
seems  to  bear.  They  nod  to  you  without  a  smile,  and  with  a 
kind  of  unconscious  recognition ;  and,  if  you  are  unaccustomed 
to  walk  out  at  that  hour,  you  might  fancy  that,  if  there  were  not 
some  great  public  calamity,  your  friends  at  least  had  done  smiling 
on  you.  Walk  as  far  as  Niblo's,  stop  at  the  greenhouse  there, 
and  breathe  an  hour  in  the  delicious  atmosphere  of  flowering 
plants,  and  then  return.  There  is  no  longer  any  particular  cur- 
rent in  Broadway.  Foreigners  coming  out  from  the  cafis,  after 
their  late  breakfast,  and  idling  up  and  down,  for  fresh  air ; 
country-people  shopping  early ;  ladies  going  to  their  dress-makers 
in  close  veils  and  demi-toilets ;  errand-boys,  news-boys,  duns, 
and  doctors,  make  up  the  throng.  Toward  twelve  o'clock  there 
is  a  sprinkling  of  mechanics  going  to  dinner — a  merry,  short- 
jacketed,  independent-looking  troop,  glancing  gayly  at  the  women 
as  they  pass,  and  disappearing  around  corners  and  up  alleys, 
and  an  hour  later  Broadway  begins  to  brighten.  The  omnibus** 


A   DAY  OF    IDLING.  237 


go  along  empty,  and  at  a  slow  pace,  for  people  would  rather 
walk  than  ride.  The  side-streets  are  tributaries  of  silks  and 
velvets,  flowers  and  feathers,  to  the  great  thoroughfare ;  and 
ladies,  whose  proper  mates  (judging  by  the  dress  alone)  should 
be  lords  and  princes,  and  dandies,  shoppers,  and  loungers  of  every 
description,  take  crowded  possession  of  the  pave.  At  nine  o'clock 
you  look  into  the  troubled  faces  of  men  going  to  their  business, 
and  ask  yourself  "  to  what  end  is  all  this  burden  of  care  ?"  and, 
at  two,  you  gaze  on  the  universal  prodigality  of  exterior,  and 
wonder  what  fills  the  multitude  of  pockets  that  pay  for  it !  The 
faces  are  beautiful,  the  shops  are  thronged,  the  sidewalks  crowded 
for  an  hour,  and  then  the  full  tide  turns  and  sets  upward.  The 
most  of  those  who  are  out  at  three  are  bound  to  the  upper  part 
of  the  city  to  dine ;  and  the  merchants  and  lawyers,  excited  by 
collision  and  contest  above  the  depression  of  care,  join,  smiling, 
in  the  throng.  The  physiognomy  of  the  crowd  is  at  its  brightest. 
Dinner  is  the  smile  of  the  day  to  most  people,  and  the  hour 
approaches.  Whatever  has  happened  in  stocks  or  politics,  who- 
ever is  dead,  whoever  ruined,  since  morning,  Broadway  is  thronged 
with  cheerful  faces  and  good  appetites  at  three !  The  world 
will  probably  dine  with  pleasure  up  to  the  last  day — perhaps 
breakfast  with  worldly  care  for  the  future  on  doomsday  morning  ! 
And  here  I  must  break  off  my  Daguerreotype  of  yesterday's 
idling,  for  the  wind  came  round  easterly  and  raw  at  three  o'clock, 
and  I  was  driven  in-doors  to  try  industry  as  an  opiate. 


238  MUSINGS. 


The  first  day  of  freedom  from  medical  embargo  is  equivalent, 
in  most  men's  memories,  to  a  new  first  impression  of  existence 
Dame  Nature,  like  a  provident  housewife,  seems  to  take  the 
opportunity  of  a  sick  man's  absence  to  whitewash  and  freshen  the 
world  he  occupies.  Certainly,  I  never  saw  the  bay  of  New  York 
look  so  beautiful  as  on  Sunday  noon ;  and  you  may  attribute  as 
much  as  you  please  of  this  impression  to  the  "  Claude  Lorraine 
spectacles"  of  convalescence,  and  as  much  more  as  pleases  you  to 
the  fact  that  it  was  an  intoxicating  and  dissolving  day  of  Spring. 

The  Battery  on  Sunday  is  the  Champs  Ely  sees  of  foreigners. 
I  heard  nothing  spoken  around  me  but  French  and  German. 
Wrapped  in  my  cloak,  and  seated  on  a  bench,  I  watched  the 
children  and  the  poodle-dogs  at  their  gambols,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  as  if  I  were  in  some  public  resort  over  the  water.  They 
bring  such  happiness  to  a  day  of  idleness — these  foreigners — 
laughing,  talking  nonsense,  totally  unconscious  of  observation, 
and  delighted  as  much  with  the  passing  of  a  rowboat,  or  a 
steamer,  as  an  American  with  the  arrival  of  his  own  "  argosy" 
from  sea.  They  are  not  the  better  class  of  foreigners  who 
frequent  the  Battery  on  Sunday.  They  are  the  newly  arrived,  the 
artisans,  the  German  toymakers  and  the  French  bootmakers — 
people  who  still  wear  the  spacious-hipped  trowsers  and  scant 
coats,  the  gold  rings  in  the  ears,  and  the  ruffled  shirts  of  the 
lands  of  undandyfied  poverty.  They  are  there  by  hundreds. 
They  hang  over  the  railing  and  look  off  upon  the  sea.  They  sit 
and  smoke  on  the  long  benches.  They  r^n  hither  and  thither 
with  their  children,  and  behave  as  the-  ^ouH  in  their  own 
garden,  using  and  enjoying  it  just  as  if  i  "  <&'  «neir  own.  And 
an  enviable  power  they  have  of  it ! 


WHARVES  ON  SUNDAY.  239 


There  had  been  a  heavy  fog  on  the  water  all  the  morning,  and 
quite  a  fleet  of  the  river-craft  had  drifted  with  the  tide  close  on 
to  the  Battery.  The  soft  south  wind  was  lifting  the  mist  in 
undulating  sweeps,  and  covering  and  disclosing  the  spars  and  sails 
with  a  phantom  effect  quite  melo-dramatic.  By  two  o'clock  the 
breeze  was  steady  and  the  bay  clear,  and  the  horizon  was  com- 
pletely concealed  with  the  spread  of  canvass.  The  grass  in  the 
Battery^  plots  seemed  to  be  growing  visibly  meantime,  and  to  this 
animated  sea-picture  gave  a  foreground  of  tender  and  sparkling 
green ;  the  trees  looked  feathery  with  the  opening  buds ;  the  chil- 
dren rolled  on  the  grass,  and  the  summer  seemed  come.  Much 
as  Nature  loves  the  country,  she  opens  her  green  lap  first  hi  the 
cities.  The  valleys  are  asleep  under  the  snow,  and  will  be,  for 
weeks. 


I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is  not  peculiar  to  myself  to  have  a 
Sabbath  taste  for  the  water-side.  There  is  an  affinity,  felt  I  think 
by  man  and  boy,  between  the  stillness  of  the  day  and  the  audi- 
ble hush  of  boundaries  to  water.  Premising  that  it  was  at  first 
with  the  turned-up  nose  of  conscious  travestie,  I  have  to  confess 
the  finding  of  a  Sabbath  solitude,  to  my  mind,  along  the  river-side 
in  New- York — the  first  mile  toward  Albany  on  the  bank  of  the 
Hudson.  Indeed,  if  quiet  be  the  object,  the  nearer  the  water 
the  less  jostled  the  walk  on  Sunday.  You  would  think,  to  cros* 
the  city  anywhere  from  river  to  river,  that  there  was  a  general 
hydrophobia — the  entire  population  crowding  to  the  high  ridge 
of  Broadway,  and  hardly  a  soul  to  be  seen  on  either  the  East 


240  MUSINGS. 


River  or  the  Hudson.  But,  with  a  little  thoughtful  frequenting, 
those  deserted  river-sides  become  contemplative  and  pleasant 
rambling-places ;  and,  if  some  whim  of  fashion  do  not  make  the 
bank  of  the  Hudson  like  the  Manna  of  Smyrna,  a  fashionable  re- 
sort, I  have  my  Sunday  afternoons  provided  for,  during  the  pig- 
ritude  of  city  durance. 

Yesterday  (Sunday)  it  blew  one  of  those  unfolding  west  winds, 
chartered  expressly  to  pull  the  kinks  out  of  the  belated  leaves — 
a  breeze  it  was  delightful  to  set  ihe  face  to — strong,  genial,  and 
inspiriting,  and  smelling  (in  New- York)  of  the  snubbed  twigs  of 
Hoboken.  The  Battery  looked  very  delightful,  with  the  grass 
laying  its  cheek  to  the  ground,  and  the  trees  all  astir  and  trink- 
ling ;  but  on  Sunday  this  lovely  resort  is  full  of  smokers  of  bad 
cigars — unpleasant  gentlemen  to  take  the  wind  of.  I  turned  the 
corner  with  a  look  through  the  fence,  and  was  in  comparative 
solitude  the  next  moment. 

The  monarch  of  our  deep  water-streams,  the  gigantic  "  Massa- 
chusetts," lay  at  her  wharf,  washed  by  the  waving  hands  of  the 
waters  taking  leave  of  the  Hudson.  The  river  ends  under  the 
prow — or,  as  we  might  say  with  a  poetic  license,  joins  on,  at  this 
point,  to  Stonington — so  easy  is  the  transit  from  wharf  to  wharf 
in  that  magnificent  conveyance.  From  this  point  up,  extends  a 
line  of  ships,  rubbing  against  the  pier  the  fearless  noses  that  have 
nudged  the  poles  and  the  tropics,  and  been  breathed  on  by  spice - 
islands  and  icebergs — an  array  of  nobly -built  merchantmen,  that, 
with  the  association  of  their  triumphant  and  richly-freighted 
comings  and  goings,  grows  upon  my  eye  with  a  certain  majesty. 
It  is  a  broad  street  here,  of  made  land,  and  the  sidewalks  in  front 
of  the  new  stores  are  lumbered  with  pitch  and  molasses,  flour  and 


SABBATH  WALK.  241 


tul  ochre,  bales,  bags,  and  barrels,  in  unsightly  confusion— but 
the  wharf-side,  with  its  long  line  of  carved  figure-heads,  and 
bowsprits  projecting  over  the  street,  is  an  unobstructed  walk — on 
Sundays  at  least — and  more  suggestive  than  many  a  gallery  of 
marble  statues.  The  vessels  that  trade  to  the  North  Sea  harbor 
here,  unloading  their  hemp  and  iron ;  and  the  superb  French 
packet-ships,  with  their  gilded  prows ;  and,  leaning  over  the 
gangways  and  taffrails,  the  Swedish  and  Norwegian  sailors  jab- 
ber away  their  Sunday's  idle  time ;  and  the  negro-cooks  lie  and 
look  into  the  puddles ;  and,  altogether,  it  is  a  strangely-mixed  pic- 
ture— Power  reposing,  and  Fret  and  Business  gone  from  the  six- 
days'  whip  and  chain.  I  sat  down  on  a  short  hawser-post,  and 
conjured  the  spirits  of  ships  around  me.  They  were  as  commu- 
nicative as  would  naturally  be  expected  in  a  tite-a-tete  when  quite 
at  leisure.  Things  they  had  seen  and  got  wind  of  hi  the  Indian 
seas,  strange  fishes  that  had  tried  the  metal  of  their  copper  bot- 
toms, porpoises  they  had  run  over  asleep,  wrecks  and  skeletons 
they  had  thrown  a  shadow  across  when  under  prosperous  head- 
way— these  and  particulars  of  the  fortunes  they  had  brought 
home,  and  the  passengers  coming  to  look  through  one  more 
country  to  find  happiness,  and  the  terrors  and  dangers,  heart- 
aches and  dreams,  that  had  come  and  gone  with  each  bill  of 
lading — the  talkative  old  bowsprits  told  me  all.  I  sat  and 
watched  the  sun  setting  between  two  outlandish-looking  vessels, 
and,  at  twilight,  turned  to  go  home,  leaving  the  spars  and  lines 
drawn  in  clear  tracery,  on  a  sky  as  rosy  and  fading  as  a  poet's 
prospects  at  seventeen. 


VOL.  i.  11 


242  MUSINGS. 


We  know  nothing  of  a  more  restless  tendency  than  a  fine,  old- 
fashioned  June  day-— one  that  begins  with  a  morning  damp  with 
a  fresh  south  wind,  and  gradually  clears  away  in  a  thin  white 
mist,  till  the  sun  shines  through  at  last,  genial  and  luxurious,  but 
not  sultry,  and  everything  looks  clear  and  bright  in  the  transpa- 
rent atmosphere.  We  know  nothing  which  so  seduces  the  very 
eye  and  spirit  of  a  man,  and  stirs  in  him  that  gipsy  longing, 
which,  spite  of  warning  and  punishment,  made  him  a  truant  in  hi*, 
boyhood.  There  is  an  expansive  rarity  in  the  air  of  such  a  day — 
a  something  that  lifts  up  the  lungs,  and  plays  in  the  nostrils  with 
a  delicious  sensation  of  freshness  and  elasticity.  The  close  room 
grows  sadly  dull  under  it.  The  half-open  blind,  with  its  tempt- 
ing glimpse  of  the  sky,  and  branch  of  idle  leaves  flickering  in  the 
sun,  has  a  strange  witchery.  The  poor  pursuits  of  this  drossy 
world  grow  passing  insignificant ;  and  the  scrawled  and  blotted 
manuscripts  of  an  editor's  table — pleasant  anodyne  as  they  are 
when  the  wind  is  in  the  east — are,  at  these  seasons,  but  the 
"Diary  of  an  Ennuyee" — the  notched  calendar  of  confinement 
and  unrest.  The  commendatory  sentence  stands  half-completed  ; 
the  fate  of  the  author  under  review,  with  his  two  volumes,  is  alto- 
gether of  less  importance  than  five  minutes  of  the  life  of  that 
tame  pigeon  that  sits  on  the  eaves  washing  his  white  breast  in  the 
spout ;  and  the  public  good-will,  and  the  cause  of  literature,  and 
our  own  precarious  livelihood,  all  fade  into  dim  shadow,  and 
leave  us  listening  dreamily  to  the  creeping  of  the  sweet  south 
upon  the  vine,  or  the  far-off  rattle  of  the  hourly,  with  its  freight 
of  happy  bowlers  and  gentlemen  of  suburban  idleness. 

What  is  it  to  us  when  the  sun  is  shining,  and  the  winds  bland 
and  balmy,  and  the  moist  roads  with  their  fresh  smell  of  earth 


CONFINED  LIFE.  243 


tempting  us  away  to  the  hills — what  is  it,  then,  to  us,  whether  a 
poor-devil-author  has  a  flaw  in  his  style,  or  our  own  leading  article 
a  "  local  habitation  and  a  name  ?"  Are  we  to  thrust  down  our 
heart  like  a  reptile  into  its  cage,  and  close  our  shutter  to  the 
cheerful  light,  and  our  ear  to  all  sounds  of  out-door  happiness  ? 
Are  we  to  smother  our  uneasy  impulses,  and  chain  ourselves  down 
to  a  poor,  dry  thought,  that  has  neither  light,  nor  music,  nor  any 
spell  in  it,  save  the  poor  necessity  of  occupation  ?  Shall  we  for- 
get the  turn  in  the  green  lane  where  we  are  wont  to  loiter  in  our 
drive,  and  the  cool  claret  of  our  friend  at  the  Hermitage,  and  the 
glorious  golden  summer  sunset  in  which  we  bowl  away  to  the 
city — musing  and  refreshed  ?  Alas — yes !  the  heart  must  be 
closed,  and  the  green  lane  and  the  friend  that  is  happier  than  we 
(for  he  is  idle)  must  be  forgotten,  and  the  dry  thought  must  be 
dragged  up  like  a  willful  steer  and  yoked  to  its  fellow,  and  the 
magnificent  sunset,  with  all  its  glorious  dreams  and  forgetful  hap- 
piness, must  be  seen  in  the  pauses  of  articles,  and  the  "  bleared 
een"  of  painful  attention — and  all  this  in  June — prodigal  June — 
when  the  very  worm  is  all  day  out  in  the  sun,  and  the  birds 
scarce  stop  their  singing  from  the  gray  light  to  the  dewfall ! 


What  an  insufferable  state  of  the  thermometer !  We  knock 
ander  to  Heraclitus,  that  fire  is  the  first  principle  of  all  things. 
Fahrenheit  at  one  hundred  degrees  in  the  shade  !  Our  curtain 
in  the  attic  unstirred !  Our  japonica  drooping  its  great  white 
flowers  lower  and  lower.  It  is  a  fair  scene,  indeed  !  not  a  ripple 
from  the  pier  to  the  castle,  and  the  surface  of  the  water  as  Shel- 
ley says,  "  like  a  plane  of  glass  sj  read  out  between  two  heavens  ' 


244  MUSINGS. 


— and  there  is  a  solitary  sloop,  with  the  light  and  shade  flicker- 
ing on  its  loose  sail,  positively  hung  in  the  air — and  a  gull,  it  is 
refreshing  to  see  him,  keeping  down  with  his  white  wings  close 
to  the  water,  as  if  to  meet  his  own  snowy  and  perfect  shadow. 
Was  ever  such  intense,  unmitigated  sunshine  ?  There  is  nothing 
on  the  hard,  opaque  sky,  but  a  mere  rag  of  a  cloud,  like  a  hand- 
kerchief on  a  tablet  of  blue  marble,  and  the  edge  of  the  shadow 
of  that  tall  chimney  is  as  definite  as  a  hair ;  and  the  young  elm  that 
leans  over  the  fence  is  copied  in  perfect  and  motionless  leaves, 
like  a  very  painting  on  the  broad  sidewalk.  How  delightful  the 
night  will  be  after  such  a  deluge  of  light !  How  beautiful  the 
modest  rays  of  the  starlight,  and  the  cool  dark  blue  of  the  hea- 
vens will  seem  after  the  dazzling  clearness  of  this  sultry  noon  !  It 
reminds  one  of  that  exquisite  passage  in  Thalaba,  where  the 
spirit-bird  comes,  when  his  eyes  are  blinded  with  the  intense 
brightness  of  the  snow,  and  spreads  her  green  wings  before  him  ! 


There  is  no  struggling  against  it — we  have  a  need  to  pass  the 
summer  in  some  place  that  God  made.  We  have  argued  the 
instinct  down — every  morning  since  May-day — while  shaving. 
It  is  as  cool  in  the  city  as  in  the  country,  we  believe.  We  see  as 
many  trees,  from  our  window,  (living  opposite  St.  Paul's  church- 
yard,) and  as  much  grass,  as  we  could  take  in  at  a  glance.  The 
air  we  breathe,  outside  the  embrasures  of  Castle  Garden,  every 
afternoon,  and  on  board  the  Hoboken  and  Jersey  boats,  every 
warm  evening,  are  entire  recompenses  to  the  lungs  for  the  day's 
dust  and  stony  heat.  And  then  God  intends  that  somebody  shall 
live  in  the  city  in  summer-time,  and  why  not  we  ?  By  the  time 


WANT  OF  HORSES  246 


this  argument  is  over,  our  chin  and  our  rebellious  spirit  are  both 
smoothed  down.  Breakfast  is  ready — as  cool  fruit,  as  delicious 
butter  under  the  ice,  and  as  beloved  a  vis-a-vis  over  the  white 
cloth  and  coffee-tray  as  we  should  have  in  the  country.  We  go 
to  work  after  breakfast  with  passable  content.  The  city  cries,  and 
the  city  wheels,  the  clang  of  the  charcoal  cart  and  the  importuni- 
ties of  printer's  imp — all  blend  in  the  passages  of  our  outer  ear 
as  unconsciously  and  fitly  as  brook-noises  and  breeze-doings.  We 
are  well  enough  till  two.  An  hour  to  dinner — somewhat  a  weary 
hour,  we  must  say,  with  a  subdued  longing  for  some  earth  to  walk 
upon.  Dinner — pretty  well !  Discontent  and  sorrow  dwell  in  a 
man's  throat,  and  go  abroad  while  it  is  watered  and  swept.  The 
hour  after  dinner  has  its  little  resignation  also — coffee,  music,  and 
the  "  angel-visit"  from  the  nursery.  Five  o'clock  comes  round, 
and  with  it  Nature's  demand  for  a  pair  of  horses.  (Alas  !  why  are 
we  not  centaurs,  to  have  a  pair  of  horses  when  we  marry  ?)  We 
get  into  an  omnibus,  and  as  we  get  toward  the  porcelain  end  of 
the  city,  our  porcelain  friends  pass  us  in  their  carnages,  bound  out 
where  the  earth  breathes  and  the  grass  grows.  An  irresistible 
discontent  overwhelms  us!  The  paved  hand  of  the  city  spreads 
out  beneath  us,  holding  down  the  grass  and  shutting  off  the  saluta- 
ry earth-pores,  and  we  pine  for  balm  and  moisture !  The  over- 
worked mind  offers  no  asylum  of  thought.  It  is  the  out-door 
time  of  day.  Nature  calls  us  to  her  bared  bosom,  and  there  is  a 
floor  of  impenetrable  stone  between  us  and  her  !  At  the  end  of 
the  omnibus-line  we  turn  and  go  back,  and  resume  our  paved  and 
walled-up  existence ;  and  all  the  logic  of  philosophy,  aided  by 
ice-creams  and  bands  of  music,  would  fail  to  convince  us,  that 
night,  that  we  are  not  victims  and  wretches  For  Heaven's  sake, 


246  MUSINGS. 


some  kind  old  man,  give  us  an  acre  off  the  pavement,  and  money 
enough  to  go  and  lie  on  the  outside  of  it,  of  summer  afternoons ! 


We  had  a  June  May,  and  a  May  June,  and  the  brick  world  of 
Manhattan  has  not,  as  yet,  become  too  hot  to  hold  us.  This  is 
to  be  our  first  experiment  at  passing  the  entire  summer  in  the 
city,  and  we  had  laid  up  a  few  alleviations  which  have  as  yet 
kept  the  shelf,  with  our  white  hat,  uncalled  for  by  any  great  rise 
in  the  thermometer.  There  is  no  knowing,  however,  when  we 
shall  hear  from  Texas  and  the  warm  "  girdle  round  the  earth," 
(the  equator — no  reference  to  English  dominion,)  and  our  advice 
to  the  stayers  in  town  may  be  called  for  by  a  south  wind  before 
it  is  fairly  printed.  First — our  substitute  for  a  private  yacht 
Not  having  twenty  thousand  dollars  to  defray  our  aquatic  tenden- 
cies— having,  on  the  contrary,  an  occasional  spare  shilling — we 
take  our  moonlight  trip  on  the  river — dividing  the  cool  breezes, 
'twixt  shore  and  shore — in  the  Jersey  ferry-boat.  Smile  those 
who  have  private  yachts .!  We  know  no  pleasanter  trip,  after  the 
dusk  of  the  evening,  than  to  stroll  down  to  the  ferry,  haul  a 
bench  to  the  bow  of  the  ferry-boat,  and  "  open  up"  the  evening 
breeze  for  two  miles  and  back,  for  a  shilling  !  After  eight  o'clock, 
there  are,  on  an  average,  ten  people  in  the  boat,  and  you  have 
the  cool  shoulder  under  the  railing,  as  nearly  as  possible,  to  your- 
self. The  long  line  of  lamps  on  either  shore  makes  a  gold  flounce 
to  the  "  starry  skirt  of  heaven" — the  air  is  as  pure  as  the  rich 
man  has  it  in  his  grounds,  and  all  the  money  in  the  world  could 
not  mend  the  outside  of  your  lie  ad,  as  far  as  the  horizon.  (And 


OMNIBUS  LUXURY. 


(he  horizon,  at  such  a  place  and  hour,  becomes  a  substitute  for 
the  small  hoop  you  have  stepped  out  of.)  No  man  is  richer  than 
we,  or  could  be  better  off — till  we  reach  the  Jersey  shore — and 
we  are  as  rich  going  back.  Try  this  of  a  hot  evening,  all  who 
prefer  coolness  and  have  a  mind  that  is  good  company. 

Then,  there  is  our  substitute  for  an  airing.  There  is  a  succes- 
sion of  coaches,  lined  with  red  velvet,  that,  in  the  slope  of  the 
afternoon,  ply,  nearly  empty,  the  whole  length  of  Broadway — 
two  or  three  miles,  at  an  easy  pace,  for  sixpence.  We  have  had 
vehicles,  or  friends  who  had  vehicles,  in  most  times  and  places 
that  we  remember,  and  we  crave  our  ride  after  dinner.  We  need 
to  get  away  from  walls  and  ceiling  stuck  over  with  cares  and 
brain- work,  and  to  be  amused  without  effort — particularly  with- 
out the  effort  of  walking  or  talking.  So — 

"  Taking  our  hat  in  our  hand,  that  remarkably  requisite  practice" — 

we  step  out  from  our  side-street  to  the  brink  of  Broadway,  and 
presto,  like  magic,  up  drives  an  empty  coach  with  two  horses,  red 
velvet  lining,  and  windows  open ;  and,  by  an  adroit  slackening  of 
the  tendons  of  his  left  leg,  the  driver  opens  the  door  to  us.  With 
the  leisurely  pace  suited  to  the  hour  and  its  besoin,  our  carriage 
rolls  up  Broadway,  giving  us  a  sliding  panorama  of  such  charms 
as  are  peculiar  to  the  afternoon  of  the  great  thoroughfare,  (quite 
the  best  part  of  the  day,  for  a  spectator  merely.)  Every  bonnet 
we  see  wipes  off  a  care  from  our  mental  slate,  and  every  nudge  to 
our  curiosity  shoves  up  our  spirits  a  peg.  Easily  and  uncrowded, 
we  are  set  down  for  our  sixpence  at  "  Fourteenth  street,"  and 
turning  our  face  once  more  toward  Texas,  we  take  the  next  vel- 
vet-lined vehicle  bound  down.  The  main  difference  betwixt  us 


248  MUSINGS. 


and  the  rich  man,  for  that  hour,  is,  that  he  rides  in  a  green  lane, 
and  we  in  Broadway — he  sees  green  leaves,  arid  we  pretty  wo- 
men— he  pays  much  and  we  pay  little.  The  question  of  envy, 
therefore,  depends  upon  which  of  these  categories  you  honestly 
prefer.  While  Providence  furnishes  the  spare  shilling,  we,  at  any 
rate,  will  not  complain.  Such  of  our  friends  as  are  prepared  to 
condole  with  us  for  our  summer  among  the  bricks,  will  please 
credit  us  with  the  two  foregoing  alleviations. 


There  is  nothing  for  which  the  similitudes  of  poetry  seem  to 
us  so  false  and  poor,  as  for  affliction  by  the  death  of  those  we 
love.  The  news  of  such  a  calamity  is  not  "  a  blow."  It  is  not 
like  "a  thunderbolt,"  or  " a  piercing  arrow  ;"  it  does  not  "crush 
and  overwhelm"  us.  We  hear  it,  at  first,  with  a  kind  of  mourn- 
ful incredulity,  and  the  second  feeling  is,  perhaps,  a  wonder  at 
ourselves — that  we  are  so  little  moved.  The  pulse  beats  on  as 
tranquilly — the  momentary  tear  dries  from  the  eye.  We  go  on, 
about  the  errand  in  which  we  were  interrupted.  We  eat,  sleep,  at 
our  usual  time,  and  are  nourished  and  refreshed  ;  and  if  a  friend 
meet  us  and  provoke  a  smile,  we  easily  and  forgetfully  smile. 
Nature  does  not  seem  to  be  conscious  of  the  event,  or  she  does 
not  recognize  it  as  a  calamity. 

But  little  of  what  is  taken  away  by  death  is  taken  from  the 
happiness  of  one  hour,  or  one  day.  We  live,  absent  from  be- 
loved relatives,  without  pain.  Days  pass  without  our  seeing 
them — months — years.  They  would  be  no  more  absent  in  body 


DEFERRINGS   OF    SORROW.  249 


if  they  were  dead.  But  suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  our  common 
occupations,  we  hear  that  they  are  one  remove  farther  from  us — in 
the  grave.  The  mind  acknowledges  it  true.  The  imagination  makes 
a  brief  and  painful  visit  to  the  scene  of  the  last  agony,  the  death- 
cnamber,  the  burial — and  returns,  weary  and  dispirited,  to  repose. 
For  that  hour,  perhaps,  we  should  not  have  thought  of  the  depart- 
ed if  they  were  living — nor  for  the  next.  The  routine  we  had  relied 
upon  to  fill  up  those  hours  comes  round.  We  give  it  our  cheer- 
ful attention.  The  beloved  dead  are  displaced  from  our  memory, 
and  perhaps  we  start  suddenly,  with  a  kind  of  reproachful  sur- 
prise, that  we  can  have  been  so  forgetful — that  the  world,  with 
its  wheels  of  minutes  and  trifles,  can  thus  untroubled  go  round, 
and  that  dear  friend  gone  from  it. 

But  the  day  glides  on,  and  night  comes.  We  lie  down,  and 
unconsciously,  as  we  turn  upon  our  pillow,  commence  a  recapit- 
ulation that  was  once  a  habit  of  prayer — silently  naming  over  the 
friends  whom  we  should  commend  to  God — did  we  pray — as 
those  most  dear  to  us.  Suddenly  the  heart  stops — the  breath 
hushes — the  tears  spring  hot  to  the  eyelids.  We  miss  the  dead  ! 
From  that  chain  of  sweet  thoughts  a  link  is  broken ;  and,  for  the 
first  time,  we  feel  that  we  are  bereaved.  It.  was  in  the  casket  of 
that  last  hour  before  sleeping — embalmed  in  the  tranquillity  of 
that  hour's  unnamed  and  unreckoned  happiness — that  the  mem- 
ory of  the  dead  lay  hid.  For  that  friend,  now,  we  can  no  longer 
pray  !  Among  the  living — among  our  blessings — among  our 
hopes — that  sweet  friend  is  nameable  no  more !  We  realize  it 
now.  The  list  of  those  who  love  us — whom  we  love — is  made 
briefer.  With  face  turned  upon  our  pillow — with  anguish  and 
11* 


250  MUSINGS. 


fears — we  blot  out  the  beloved  name,  and  begin  the  slow  and 
nightly  task  of  unlearning  the  oft-told  syllables  from  our  lips. 

And  this  is  the  slow-opening  gate  by  which  sorrow  enters  in ! 
We  wake  on  the  morrow,  and  remember  our  tears  of  the  past 
night ;  and,  as  the  cheerful  sunshine  streams  in  at  our  window, 
we  think  of  the  kind  face  and  embracing  arms,  the  soft  eyes  and 
beloved  lips,  lying  dark  and  cold,  in  a  place — oh,  how  pitiless  in 
its  coldness  and  darkness !  We  choke  with  a  suffused  sob,  we 
heave  the  heavy  thought  from  our  bosom  with  a  painful  sigh, 
and  hasten  abroad — for  relief  in  forgetfulness  ! 

But  we  had  not  anticipated  that  this  dear  friend  would  die, 
and  we  have  marked  out  years  to  come  with  hopes  in  which  the 
dead  was  to  have  been  a  sharer.  Thoughts,  and  promises,  and 
meetings,  and  gifts,  and  pleasures,  of  which  hers  was  the  brighter 
half,  are  wound  like  a  wreath  of  flowers  around  the  chain  of  the 
future,  and,  as  we  come  to  them — to  the  places  where  these  look- 
ed-for  flowers  lie  in  ashes  upon  the  inevitable  link— oh,  God ! 
with  what  agonizing  vividness  they  suddenly  return ! — with  what 
grief,  made  intenser  by  realizing,  made  more  aching  by  prolonged 
absence,  we  call  up  those  features  beloved,  and  remember  where 
they  lie,  uncaressed  and  unvisited !  Years  must  pass — and 
other  affections  must  "  sweep,  and  garnish,  and  enter  in"  to  the 
void  chambers  of  the  heart — and  consolation  and  natural  forget- 
fulness must  do  their  slow  work  of  erasure — and,  meantime,  grief 
visits  us,  in  unexpected  times  and  places,  its  paroxysms  imper- 
ceptibly lessening  in  poignancy  and  tenacity,  but  life,  in  its  main 
current,  flowing,  from  the  death  to  the  forgetting  of  it,  un- 
changed on ! 


GRIEFS  RECURRENCES  251 


And  now,  what  is  like  to  this,  in  Nature,  (for  even  the  slight 
sympathy  in  dumb  similitudes  is  sweet  ?)  It  is  not  like  the 
rose's  perishing — for  that  robs  only  the  hour  in  which  it  dies. 
It  were  more  like  the  removal  from  earth  of  that  whole  race  of 
flowers,  for  we  should  not  miss  the  first  day's  roses,  hardly  the  first 
season's,  and  should  mourn  most  when  the  impoverished  Spring 
came  once  more  round  without  them.  It  were  like  stilling  the 
music  of  a  brook  forever,  or  making  all  singing-birds  dumb,  or 
hushing  the  wind-murmur  in  the  trees,  or  drawing  out  from 
Nature  any  one  of  her  threads  of  priceless  repetition.  We  should 
not  mourn  for  the  first  day's  silence  in  the  brook,  or  in  the  trees — 
nor  for  the  first  morning's  hush  after  the  birds  were  made  voice- 
less. The  recurrent  dawns,  or  twilights,  or  summer  noons,  rob- 
bed of  their  accustomed  music,  would  bring  the  sense  of  its  loss 
— the  value  of  what  was  taken  away  increasing  with  its  recurrent 
season.  But  these  are  weak  similitudes — as  they  must  needs  be, 
drawn  from  a  world  in  which  death — the  lot  alike  of  all  living 
creatures  that  inhabit  it — is  only  a  calamity  to  man ! 


EVANESCENT    IMPRESSIONS. 

I  have  very  often,  in  the  fine  passages  of  society — such  as 
occur  sometimes  in  the  end  of  an  evening,  or  when  a  dinner-party 
has  dwindled  to  an  unbroken  circle  of  choice  and  congenial  spirits, 
or  at  any  of  those  times  when  conversation,  stripped  of  all  reserve 
or  check,  is  poured  out  in  the  glowing  and  unfettered  enthusiasm 
to  which  convivial  excitement  alone  gives  the  confidence  necessary 
to  its  flow — I  have  often  wished,  at  such  times,  that  the  voice 


252  MUSINGS. 


and  manner  of  the  chance  and  fleeting  eloquence  about  us  could 
be  arrested  and  written  down  for  others  besides  ourselves  to 
see  and  admire.  In  a  chance  conversation  at  a  party,  in  the 
bagatelle  rattle  of  a  dance,  in  a  gay  hour  over  coffee  and  sand- 
wiches en  famille,  wherever  you  meet  those  whom  you  love  or 
value,  there  will  occur  pieces  of  dialogue,  jeux  d'esprit,  passages 
of  feeling  or  fun — trifles,  it  is  true,  but  still  such  trifles  as  make 
eras  in  the  calendar  of  happiness — which  you  would  give  the 
world  to  rescue  from  their  ephemeral  destiny.  They  are,  per- 
haps, the  soundings  of  a  spirit  too  deep  for  ordinary  life  to  fathom, 
or  the  gracefulness  of  a  fancy  linked  with  too  feminine  a  nature 
to  bear  the  eye  of  the  world,  or  the  melting  of  a  frost  of  reserve 
from  the  diffident  genius — they  are  traces  of  that  which  is  fleeting, 
or  struck  out  like  phosphorus  from  the  sea  by  irregular  chance — 
and  you  want  something  quicker  and  rarer  than  forms!  descrip- 
tion to  arrest  it  warm  and  natural,  and  detain  it  in  ito  ^Jace  till 
it  can  be  looked  upon. 


INVALID    RAMBLES 

IN  GERMANY, 

IN  THE  SUMMER  OF    1845. 


INVALID    RAMBLES. 

i. 

WITF  my  brother,  who  has  been  some  years  resident  in  Germany, 
I  started  one  beautiful  autumnal  afternoon,  on  a  visit  to  the  Leipsic 
Cemetery.  On  our  way  we  met  a  mourning- carriage,  with  an  ar- 
rangement that  was  new  to  me,  and  I  was  at  a  loss  whether  to 
think  it  touching  or  droll.  The  hearse,  and  the  carriage  for  the 
principal  mourners,  were  combined  in  one  vehicle — the  head  of  the 
corpse,  that  is  to  say,  lying  in  the  carriage  on  the  fore-seat  and 
its  feet  extending  out  under  the  driver.  It  was  like  a  coach  with 
a  long  black  box  projecting  lengthwise  under  the  driver's  feet. 
In  the  novelty,  probably,  lay  all  that  produced  an  irreverent  feel- 
ing ;  as  nearness  to  the  dead,  up  to  the  last  moment,  must  bo 
desirable  to  the  mourner  accompanying  the  body  to  the  grave. 

The  German  funeral  customs  are,  in  many  respects,  different 
from  those  of  other  countries.  As  we  walked  through  the  ceme- 
tery, I  saw  various  things  which  struck  me  as  curious,  some  of 
them  agreeable  to  the  mind  and  some  revolting.  I  was  pleased, 
among  other  things,  with  a  pretty  substitute  for  the  "  born"  and 
"died"  of  common  inscriptions  upon  tombstones — an  upright 
torch  over  the  date  of  the  birth,  and  an  inverted  torch  over  the 


256  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


date  of  the  death.  The  new-made  graves  were  singularly  orna- 
mented. In  addition  to  bouquets  of  flowers,  which,  by  them- 
selves, seem  a  very  natural  tribute,  muslin  scarfs,  with  gold  and 
silver  fringes,  were  laced  across  the  sod,  and  sliced  lemons  laid 
in  among  the  flowers.  The  tops  of  most  of  the  new-made  graves 
resembled  the  ornaments  for  a  diner  sur  Vherle  ;  and  as  these  tri- 
butes apparently  are  not  removed  for  months,  the  decayed  fruit 
and  flowers,  and  the  soiled  lace,  upon  the  less  recent  mounds, 
seemed  to  me  rather  to  express  neglect  than  attention.  Most  of 
the  graves  in  the  open  church-yard,  (the  "  God's  acre,""  as  the 
Germans  strongly  call  it,)  have  palings  around  them,  and  an  in- 
variable wooden  seat  and  gravel-walk  within.  These  arrange- 
ments for  walking  around,  and  sitting  with,  the  dead,  are  so  in- 
conveniently small  that  I  presumed  they  were  figurative,  and  might 
as  well  have  been  carved  upon  the  tombstone  ;  but  they  are  kept 
in  order,  the  year  round,  for  fees  paid  to  the  sexton  ;  and,  once  a 
year,  (on  St.  John's  day,)  it  is  the  custom  at  Leipsic  for  relatives 
to  meet  and  pass  the  day  with  their  dead,  covering  the  graves  with 
fresh  flowers,  and  eating,  drinking,  and  smoking  there  together. 
With  the  lower  classes,  this  day  of  revisiting  and  recalling  the 
memory  of  the  dead,  is  turned  into  a  picknick  frolic. 

The  upper  classes  bury  their  dead  in  a  kind  of  open  cottage, 
each  family  having  a  separate  one,  and  these  small  buildings 
standing  in  regular  lows  around  squares,  like  a  rural  village. 
They  resemble  neat  suburban  residences,  only  that  the  door  is  of 
wire- work,  and  the  centre  of  the  floor  is  never  closed  over  the 
vault.  As  you  look  in,  you  see  a  pretty  room  hung  with  ever- 
green wreaths  and  decorated  with  the  names  of  the  dead,  written 
and  framed,  and  hanging,  like  pictures,  on  the  walls.  The  en- 


GERMAN   FRIENDSHIP.  257 


deavor  seems  to  have  been  to  remove  the  look  of  repulsive 
imprisonment  of  the  dead. 

In  the  newer  part  of  the  cemetery,  I  observed  that  handsome 
enclosures  were  the  prevailing  taste,  with  a  wall  at  the  back,  in 
which  was  set  a  marble  tablet  for  the  inscriptions.  One  of  these 
was  an  indication  of  a  plant  much  more  carefully  cultivated  in 
Germany  than  with  us — (friendship) — and  ran  thus  :  "  Resting' 
place  of  the  family  Plato  and  their  friend  Dolz"  In  the  centre 
of  another  tablet,  inscribed  "  Family  Schmidt,"  was  a  sculptured 
Death's  head  with  a  lizard  and  snake  creeping  from  the  holes  of  the 
skull — a  sort  of  horrible  defiance  of  the  general  spirit  of  this  poetical 
cemetery  which  must  have  come  from  an  obstinate  bad  man.  Two 
inscriptions  which  I  saw  here  delighted  me.  One  was,  "  Res* 
lightly,  good  daughter  /" — an  epitaph  of  beautiful  simplicity.  The 
other  is  the  perfection  of  poetical  brevity  and  elegance,  and  was 
engraved  on  a  small  and  humble  stone  :  "  Un  ange  de  plus  au  del." 

The  church  of  St.  John  stands  at  the  entrance  of  this  cemetery, 
and  the  many  streets  and  squares,  extending  far  off  in  the  rear, 
offer  a  cheerful  rather  than  a  gloomy  promenade  to  the  public. 
There  is  another  cemetery,  I  was  told,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Leipsic,  in  a  secluded  place  called  St.  John's  Valley,  to  which 
great  numbers  of  the  lower  classes  resort  for  the  frolicksome 
keeping  of  the  sepulchral  anniversary. 

I  observed  that  the  German  grave-digger  has  an  expressive 
addition  to  his  tools — a  ladder — to  insure  his  return.  On  inquir- 
ing as  to  the  meaning  of  the  sliced  lemons  upon  the  graves,  I  was 
told  that,  as  anti-corruptive,  the  fruit  was  symbolical ;  and  that 
the  poor  commonly  bury  the  dead  with  the  chin  propped  with  a 
lemon,  as  there  is  an  opinion  very  common,  that,  at  a  certain 


258  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


stage  of  corruption,  the  body  trembles,  and  the  jaw  wags,  if  un- 
supported. 

ii. 

Teaching  the  deaf  and  dumb  to  hear  with  the  eye,  and  teaching 
them  to  know  how  to  speak  by  seeing  and  feeling  words  when 
spoken,  are  triumphs  of  inventive  benevolence,  of  which  the  pa- 
tient and  good  Germans  should  have  a«  enthusiastic  credit,  as 
was  given  to  Howe  for  the  lighting  ot  the  window  less  cell  in 
which  was  locked  up  the  mind  of  Laura  Bridgman.  Under  the 
guidance  of  a  friend  of  Horace  Mann's,  (Dr.  Vogel,)  my  brother 
and  I  joined  Dr.  Bartlett,  of  Philadelphia,  in  a  visit  to  the  school 
where  this  difficult  tuition  is  practiced.  We  were  shown  at  once 
into  one  of  the  school -rooms,  where,  while  waiting  for  the  princi- 
pal, we  saw  a  teacher  employed  in  the  initiatory  lesson.  Ten  or 
fifteen  deaf  and  dumb  boys  sat  at  a  long  table,  with  slates  and 
pencils  ;  and  the  master,  seated  at  the  upper  end,  had  one  pupil 
standing  at  his  knee,  whom  he  was  instructing,  while  the  others 
looked  on.  As  he  pronounced  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  the 
boy  imitated  tlie  motion  of  his  lips,  and  tliercby  made  the  same 
sound — aiding  his  imitation  of  it  by  placing  his  hand  on  the  mas- 
ter's breast  and  feeling  the  vibration,  and  then  trying  the  vibration 
of  his  own.  The  other  boys,  meantime,  wrote  on  their  slates  the 
letters  they  saw  spoken — waiting  their  turn  for  experiment  with 
the  master. 

It  is  curious,  to  one  who  has  never  before  thought  of  it,  what  a 
different  gate  the  mouth  is*  to  the  different  comers-out — how  dif- 
ferently it  lets  out  A  from  B,  C  from  D.  These  teachers  of  the 
deaf  and  dumb  find  ne  difficulty  in  making  the  exit  of  every  let- 


HEARING  WITH  THE  EYE.  259 


ter  of  the  alphabet  distinctly  recognizable  by  the  eye  only.  The 
boys  at  this  table  were  beginners,  but  they  already  knew  their 
letters  thus  by  sight,  when  spoken.  The  little  fellow  who  was  up 
for  his  lesson  was  a  complete  personification  of  Shakspeare's 
Puck — a  rosy,  laughing,  untroubled  urchin,  whom  it  was  almost  a 
pity  to  help  out  of  his  locked-up  self  into  a  less  happy  world — dig- 
ging into  a  pure  spring  to  let  in  upon  it  a  muddy  river — and  his 
imitation-utterances  of  the  letters  were  very  discordant  and  un- 
natural, as  would  be  expected  from  a  deaf  and  dumb  beginner. 
The  entrance  of  the  principal  of  the  school  interrupted  our  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  and  we  followed  into  another  apartment,  to 
see  the  upper  class,  not  without  a  pressure  of  my  hand  on  the 
head  of  my  little  favorite,  and  a  smile  of  intelligence  magnetically 
quick  in  return.  At  a  table  in  this  same  room,  by  the  way, 
the  son  of  an  Austrian  nobleman  was  pointed  out  to  us  among 
the  new  scholars — a  straight,  well-limbed  lad  of  fourteen,  who, 
by  his  melancholy  countenance,  seemed  to  have  been  made  more 
fully  aware  than  the  other  boys  of  the  extent  of  their  common 
calamity. 

The  upper  class  numbered  some  eight  or  ten  lads,  who  were 
being  taught  to  hear  and  speak  by  a  deaf  and  dumb  tutor.  (By 
hear,  I  mean,  of  course,  understand  what  is  said.)  This  tutor 
was  a  perfected  pupil  of  the  Institution,  and  a  sufficient  proof  of 
the  practicability  of  the  system.  He  was  born  deaf  and  dumb, 
but  he  conversed  freely  !  He  was  a  young  man  of  twenty-five, 
very  intelligent-looking,  and  differed  from  other  people  only  in 
the  intense  expression  of  searchingncss  in  his  countenance — a  o-aze 
as  if  he  was  trying  to  look  through  you  into  another  man — natu- 
ral enough  when  you  reflect  that  he  converses  habitually  with 


260  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


people  by  only  seeing  them  talk.  Not  understanding  the  lan- 
guage, I  could  not,  of  course,  judge  of  the  correctness  of  his  ac- 
centuation, but  he  answered  the  questions  put  to  him  with  great 
readiness,  only  with  a  little  more  guttural  effort  and  more  twist- 
ing of  the  lips  than  other  people.  He  found  no  difficulty  in  un- 
derstanding what  my  brother  said  to  him — though  Americans, 
even  in  speaking  German,  move  their  mouths  much  less  than 
Germans.  In  this  national  immobility  of  the  external  organs  of 
speech,  indeed,  lies  a  formidable  obstacle  to  the  success  of  this 
system,  either  in  England  or  America.  We  do  our  talking  inside 
Hie  mouth,  slighting  all  the  angular  sounds  to  which  the  honest 
German  lips  do  such  visible  justice.  It  was  odd,  by  the  way,  to 
see  my  brother  endeavoring  to  make  the  tutor  hear  a  question 
when  his  back  was  turned — the  latter  perfectly  unaware  that  he 
was  spoken  to,  though  he  had  heard  all  that  was  said  to  him  be- 
fore. 

The  experiments  with  the  class  were  exceedingly  interesting. 
To  see  a  once  deaf  and  dumb  man  talking  to  deaf  and  dumb  boys, 
who  afterwards  wrote  with  chalk  upon  the  wall  what  we  had 
heard  and  they  had  seen  him  say,  was  a  scene  that  had  in  it  ele- 
ments for  the  sublime.  It  seemed  i<>  me,  indeed,  somewhat  as 
clairvoyance  does — like  venturously  foiskg  a  door  that  God  has 
pointedly  shut.  I  speak  only  of  my  irA^A^sion  at  the  time.  I 
looked  along  the  bench,  however,  to  see  iC  X  could  detect,  among 
the  youthful  heads,  an  embryal  Moloch,  jvrgvus,  political,  or 
moral,  whose  senses  it  had  been  thus  neces^r^  vi  look  from  ac- 
tion on  the  world.  None,  there,  looked  to  me  as  K  >v».  Had  in 
him  the  stuff  for  dangerous  greatness. 

1  regret  exceedingly  that  the  name  of  the  benevolent  \ 


GERMAN   INATTENTION    TO  HEALTH.  2C1 


of  this  system  lias  slipped  from  my  memory.  His  physiognomy 
is  marked  for  a  philanthropist,  and  he  looks  at  home  in  the  school, 
to  which  he  has  devoted  his  life.  I  think  he  said  it  had  been  in 
operation  fifteen  years,  but  mention  is  made  of  it  in  one  of  the 
well-known  Reports  of  Horace  Mann,  to  which  I  refer  those  who 
wish  for  more  particular  information.  One  shade  I  must  put  in, 
with  the  light  of  the  picture,  and  I  do  it  solely  in  the  hope  of 
calling  the  attention  of  the  worthy  principal  to  the  subject,  since 
I  could  not  name  it  without  apparent  intrusion  through  an  inter- 
preter, and — "  scripta  verlamanent"  I  refer  to  the  want  of  per- 
sonal cleanliness  in  the  pupils,  and  a  closeness  of  air  in  the  school- 
rooms that  was  really  offensive.  The  majority  of  the  boys,  and 
all  the  masters,  were  evidently  suffering  for  fresh  air — pale  and 
unhealthy,  as  well  as  neglectful  of  their  persons.  This  (as  every 
one  knows  who  has  travelled  here)  is  a  Germanism,  and  the 
country  needs,  as  an  avatar  to  the  progress  of  education,  a  mis- 
sionary to  preach  ventilation.  To  destroy  a  boy's  health  while 
supplying  him  with  intelligence  to  enjoy  life,  is  like  the  Indian's 
lengthening  his  blanket — adding  to  the  bottom  a  piece  cut  from 
the  top. 

The  system  of  hearing  with  the  eye  gives  a  valuable  hint  to 
those  who  are  merely  deaf,  but,  as  an  unsuspected  accomplish- 
ment, it  would  make  dangerous  havoc  among  secrets.  Fancy  a 
man  in  the  pit  of  a  theatre  who  could  overhear  with  an  opera- 
c/lass  every  body  whom  he  could  see  talking.  How  many  inter- 
views between  Napoleon  and  the  statesmen  of  Europe  are  de- 
scribed in  memoirs,  where  the  writer  speaks  of  seeing  the  coun- 
tenances and  gesticulations  of  the  talkers,  yet  only  guesses  at  the 
drift  of  the  conversation !  How  judges,  conferring  in  whispers 


262  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


on  the  bench,  diplomatists  at  court,  speculators  on  'change,  oet« 
ters  at  play,  lovers  out  of  ear- shot,  might  insensibly  reveal  secrets 
to  one  of  those  eye-listeners  !  Metternich  would  find  employ  for 
a  man  with  such  an  accomplishment. 


in. 

We  went,  on  Sunday  morning,  to  hea^  the  motett — a  kind  of 
chaunt  performed  by  the  choir  of  boys  who  are  educating  in 
music  at  the  Leipsic  Conservatory.  This  performance  opens  the 
morning  service  of  the  Lutheran  Church,  at  eight  o'clock,  and, 
even  at  that  early  hour,  it  draws  a  fashionable  amateur  audience 
of  University  students,  strangers,  and  citizens.  They  are  some- 
times accompanied  by  a  full  orchestra,  and,  to  this  assimilation 
with  theatricals,  even  the  most  "  evangelical,"  in  this  music-loving 
nation,  do  not  object.  The  motett  would  not  be  called  music, 
however,  by  uneducated  ears.  It  opened  with  what  sounded 
like  a  general  scream  of  forty  or  fifty  boys  at  the  tops  of  their 
voices.  They  went  on  with  what  seemed  a  musical  scramble,  or 
race,  moderating  a  little  towards  the  close,  where  a  most  thrilling 
effect  was  produced  by  a  sudden  pause,  and  an  echo  sent  back 
from  the  other  end  of  the  church,  by  voices  hidden  behind  the 
altar.  In  this  class  of  compositions,  each  part  overlaps  the  other, 
like  scale-armor,  and  it  takes  very  industrious  listening  not  to 
have  one's  comprehension  of  the  harmony  outran.  The  boy- 
soprano  is  considered  a  great  musical  luxury.  As  in  the  miserere 
at  Rome,  it  is  very  much  run  after,  in  the  motett,  by  the  epicures 
in  harmony.  Its  intense  purity  has  certainly  an  effect  leaning 
towards  the  supernatural,  though  Nature,  by  giving  a  quality  of 


MUSICAL  COMPOSITION.  263 


voice  that  departs  with  the  innocence  of  youth,  seems  to  have 
dedicated  boys  to  church  worship — the  voice  itself,  while  it  lasts, 
expressing  the  purity  proper  to  the  choristers  of  the  temple. 

Germany  is  the  inner  tabernacle  of  harmony,  and  the  science 
of  music  is  studied  here  with  a  philosophic  depth  that  makes  of 
^  an  intellectual  profession.  In  America,  the  public  at  large 
makes*  little  distinction  between  great  composers  and  great  players 
— all  who  are  devoted  to  music,  being,  in  common  parlance, 
"musicians."  teut  there  is  almost  as  much  difference  between 
composing  harmony  and  playing  it,  as  between  making  a  horse 
and  driving  it.  Lizst,  Vieuxtemps,  De  Meyer,  and  other  great 
players,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  are  men  of  very  different  pro- 
fession from  Beethoven,  Mozart,  and  Meyerbeer.  Eminence  in 
both  composing  and  playing  is  sometimes  united  in  one  man — 
as  in  Wallace,  who  is  a  successful  author  of  operas  and  waltzes, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  a  great  pianist  and  violinist.  So,  in  the 
drama,  Sheridan  Knowles  is  both  dramatist  and  actor.  But, 
simple  difference  as  this  appears,  it  is  a  fact  that,  even  in  England, 
the  two  are  superficially  confused  ;  and  it  is  in  Germany  alone 
that  the  musical  composer  is  of  a  recognized  intellectual  profes- 
sion. The  process  of  musical  composition,  indeed,  is  a  matter  of 
very  difficult  study,  and  it  requires  years  of  application  to  acquire 
that  familiarity  with  the  laws  of  harmony  which  is  necessary  to 
compose  understnndingly.  There  is  no  profession,  perhaps,  which 
requires  so  complete  abstraction  of  mind ;  and  a  composer  of 
acknowledged  genius  holds,  in  Germany,  the  mingled  estimation 
of  scholar  and  poet.  He  is  very  certain  to  be  an  enthusiast  in 
his  art,  for  even  poets  and  scholars  are  better  paid  for  their  toils. 
It  is  probably  part  of  the  reason  why  Germany  has  become  the 


264  INVALID  KAMBLEa. 


fountain  of  music,  that,  in  addition  to  the  proper  estimation  in 
which  its  gifted  followers  are  held,  there  are  benefices,  of  some 
emolument  and  more  honor,  conferred  on  the  most  distinguished 
by  the  continental  sovereigns,  and  there  are  situations  of  some 
profit  connected  with  church  music,  with  operas,  and  musical 
instruction  in  most  of  the  capitals.  Mendelssohn,  for  example, 
is  the  "  chapel-master"  to  the  King  of  Saxony — a  very  doable 
salaried  appointment. 

In  our  comparatively  new  country,  we  are  too  busy,  as  yet, 
with  the  expressible,  to  appreciate  the  higher  meanings  of  music, 
which  Beethoven  called  "the  language  of  the  inexpressible." 
But,  as  a  refiner  and  chastener  to  the  public  taste,  as  an  innocent 
absorbent  of  popular  leisure,  and  as  an  easy  current  of  enthusi- 
asm, on  which  may  be  embarked  a  great  deal  of  instruction,  pa- 
triotism, and  religious  feeling,  a  general  taste  for  the  simpler 
forms  of  music  is  a  national  object,  worthy  of  present  and  thought- 
ful attention.  The  wealthy  and  refined  in  our  country,  as  in  all 
others,  will  command  operas,  and  the  best  players  and  singers 
from  abroad ;  but,  like  the  exotics  in  green-houses,  these  expen- 
sive importations  bring  but  little  of  the  soil  in  which  they  sprung, 
and  produce  nothing  for  "the  many."  We  want  American  mu- 
sic to  give  natural  fragrance  to  American  feeling,  enthusiasm  and 
religion.  As  a  momentum  to  patriotism,  and  a  chain  to  link  to- 
gether the  feeling  of  an  army,  there  is  nothing  like  a  national  air, 
as  is  abundantly  shown  in  the  history  of  Swiss  and  German  en- 
thusiasm ;  but,  war  aside,  national  music  is  the  true  nurse  for  love 
of  home  and  love  of  country,  and  in  a  general  taste  for  music  lies 
one  of  the  greatest  levers  which  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  reli- 
gion and  devotional  feeling.  The  hymns  and  chorals  of  Luther 


MUSIC,  IN  EDUCATION.  265 


are  recorded  by  church  historians  as  all-powerful  in  advancing 
the  cause  of  the  Reformation,  and  a  saying  is  recorded  of  one  of 
the  cardinals — "  By  his  songs  he  has  conquered  us."  A  striking 
instance  is  given  of  the  effect  of  one  of  these  compositions.  Dur- 
ing the  struggle  between  Popery  and  Protestantism,  whilst  mass 
"was  celebrating  at  the  Cathedral  at  Lubec,  and  the  people  were 
preparing  to  leave  the  church,  two  boys  began  to  sing  a  choral 
of  Luther's  which  had  just  become  generally  known,  entitled, 
"  0  God  of  heaven,  look  to  it !"  The  congregation  remained  and 
joined  in  the  singing  of  it,  as  though  it  had  been  given  out  from 
the  pulpit,  and  the  next  day  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  left  the 
city,  and  Protestantism  was  established. 

The  "  conservatory  "  that  I  have  mentioned  above,  is  a  school, 
connected  with  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas,  at  Leipsic,  where  boys 
are  sent  who  show  a  decided  natural  talent  for  music.  This 
branch  of  education  has  long  been  considered,  in  Germany,  very 
important,  and  it  has  lately  been  taken  up  in  England  by  the 
Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  for  Education.  A  singing -school 
for  schoolmasters  was  established  in  Exeter  Hall,  a  year  or  two 
ago,  under  the  direction  of  this  committee.  The  object  was  pro- 
fessedly "  to  make  congregational  singing  a  part  of  popular  educa- 
tion," so  that  every  one  could  join  harmoniously  in  this  effective 
portion  of  divine  service.  Not  long  since,  the  importance  of  this 
powerful  element  of  education  was  agitated  among  the  professors 
of  Yale  College,  and  (I  may,  perhaps,  mention  here,  without  in- 
delicacy) it  was  the  impulse  of  this  movement  which  determined 
ray  brother,  just  then  graduating  at  Yale,  to  follow  his  strong 
natural  bent,  and  substitute  the  cultivation  of  music  for  a  learned 

VOL.  i.  12 


266  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


profession.     He  is  now  at  Leipsic,  completing  his  fourth  year  of 
study  of  musical  composition. 

Among  the  statues  most  honored  at  Leipsic — standing  in  the 
public  promenade — is  that  of  Sebastian  Bach,  who,  in  his  time, 
was  one  of  the  boys  in  the  choir  of  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas. 
He  was  afterwards  director  of  the  choir.  His  name  as  a  mu- 
sical composer  stands  high  in  Germany — his  oratorios  and 
chorals  being  considered  models  of  grandeur  and  magnificence. 
He  was  a  first-rate  performer  on  the  organ,  as  well  as  a  com- 
poser. 

I  may  add,  to  the  foregoing  mention  of  the  importance  attached 
to  musical  education,  that  the  church  music  of  Russia,  which  has 
always  been  celebrated,  is  owing  to  the  care  bestowed  on  it  by 
the  government.  A  vocal  academy  has  existed  there  for  several 
centuries — established  in  the  reign  of  Wladimir  the  Great.  It  is 
maintained  by  the  State,  and  means  are  liberally  provided  for  the 
improvement  of  the  students  in  every  branch  cf  musical  science. 
Madame  Catalini  was  once  present  at  a  chorus  sung  by  the  pupils 
of  this  school,  and  is  said  to  have  exclaimed  in  tears — "  My  songs 
are  but  of  this  world,  but  that  which  I  have  just  heard  is  a  chorus 
of  angels." 

We  heard  a  motett,  on  another  Sunday,  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Nicholas,  considered  the  .handsomest  Lutheran  church  in  Ger- 
many. It  is  thought,  by  architectural  critics,  to  be  overloaded 
with  ornament,  but  it  is  certainly  a  magnificent  structure.  It  was 
here,  by  the  way,  that  I  first  became  aware  of  a  very  sensible 
German  custom— that  of  concentrating  the  coughing  and  nose- 
blowing  during  service-time.  The  clergyman  stops  at  different 


GCETHE'S  DRINKING-CELLAR.  267 


periods  of  his  discourse,  steps  back  from  his  pulpit-stand,  and 
blows  his  nose — the  entire  congregation  imitating  his  example,  and 
disturbing  the  service  with  the  operation  at  no  other  time.  This 
Church  of  St.  Nicholas  is  famous  for  another  arrangement  pecu- 
liar to  itself.  The  wealthy  citizens  of  the  town  have  private  boxes, 
with  private  entrances  from  the  street,  so  that  their  coming  and 
going,  and  their  stay  in  the  church,  are  free  from  all  observation. 
The  motett  which  we  heard  at  this  church,  even  to  my  own  un- 
educated ear,  was  thrillingly  beautiful,  and  I  thought,  then,  that 
no  preparative  of  the  proper  mood  for  divine  service  could  be 
more  effective.  Such  music  must  stir  the  tears  of  the  listener, 
and  the  door  for  devotional  utterance  is  then  open,  if  ever. 


IV. 


In  the  very  centre  of  Leipsic  stands  the  old  building,  under 
which  is  the  famous  AUERBACH'S  CELLAR,  celebrated  by  Goathe's 
having  laid  a  scene  of  his  Faust  there,  and  by  the  more  tangible 
association  that  it  was  a  frequent  place  of  carousal  for  Goethe 
himself — (educated,  you  remember,  at  the  University  of  Leipsic.) 
Knowing  the  fact  that  an  immortal  poet  had  been  seen  there 
as  a  boy,  and  had  drunk  beer  there  without  passing  for  more 
than  any  other  customer,  we  went  in — prepared,  of  course,  to  be 
sharper-eyed  than  his  contemporaries,  and,  while  we  were  there, 
at  least,  to  let  no  immortal  sit  unrecognized  at  the  beer-tables. 
Auerbach's  is  a  two-story  cellir,  the  counting-house  on  the  left 
hand  of  the  floor  nearest  above  ground,  and  the  vaulted  drinking 
room  on  the  right.  On  a  table  at  the  foot  of  the  entrance-stairs, 
stood  sealed  bottles  of  different  wines  and  liquors,  (making  rather 


268  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


the  show  of  a  Bininger's  than  a  Windust's,)  but,  dropping  our 
heads  to  go  under  the  arch  of  the  heavy  pillars  which  sustain  the 
old  building,  we  stood  in  a  low  vault,  with  very  dim  daylight 
around  us.  The  walls  were  well  rubbed,  shoulder-blade  high, 
and  the  yellow  wash  of  the  arched  ceiling  was  dull  with  smoke. 
The  tables  had  the  much-wiped  complexion  common  to  cellars, 
but  we  looked  in  vain  for  the  gimlet-holes  out  of  which  Mephis- 
tophiles  supplied  the  drunken  students  with  wine,  and  the  per- 
son who  came  forward  to  know  our  wants,  though  "  his  coat  it 
was  black,"  (and,  to  our  surprise,  he  seemed  rather  a  gentleman 
"in  his  Sunday's  best"  than  a  waiter,)  answered  in  no  other  par- 
ticular to  the  portrait  of  the  fiend  of  Dr.  Faustus.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  could  offer  to  conjure  us  up  nothing  better  to  eat  than 
a  herring — for  we  were  hungry  with  strolling  through  the  Fair, 
and  wanted  something  with  our  beer. 

We  sat  down  with  our  mugs  before  us,  and  loosed  our  imagi- 
nations. The  furniture  of  the  cellar  was  evidently  unchanged, 
and  I  doubt  if  the  ceiling  had  been  more  than  cobweb'd,  except 
with  the  head  of  an  occasional  tall  man,  since  Goethe's  time. 
Two  persons  only  were  present,  besides  ourselves ;  but,  prepart  I 
as  we  were  to  recognize  a  poet  in  either  of  them,  we  were  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  they  ate  their  herrings  and  drank  their  beer 
without  any  symptom  of  an  unshed  chrysalis.  Having  stu- 
diously avoided  learning  any  German  since  I  have  been  in  the 
country,  (thinking  that  a  language,  like  a  razor,  is  worse  than 
none,  unless  you  can  use  it  with  a  very  fine  edge,)  I  went  on  for 
a  little  while,  fancying  that  the  gutturals  I  overheard  might  pos- 
sibly have  a  smack  of  inspiration ;  but  my  brother,  to  whom  the 
language  now  is  rather  more  familiar  *han  English,  dissolved  even 


NAPOLEON'S  TENT     .  269 


that  illusion  by  a  translation  of  his  over-hearings.  They  were 
traders,  talking  of  goods — topics  infra  dig.  for  Mephistophiles  or 
his  poets.  With  a  look  at  all  the  stools,  to  make  sure  that  we 
had  seen  one  that  had  been  honored  with  the  avoirdupois  of  the 
poet,  we  paid  for  our  drink  and  its  salt  provocative,  and  "  left  the 
presence." 

Just  around  the  corner  from  Auerbach's,  is  the  square  in  which 
the  Allied  Sovereigns  and  their  Generals  met,  on  the  day  after 
Napoleon's  first  certain  toppling  to  his  downfall — the  day  after 
the  crisis-battle  of  Leipsic.  One  of  the  buildings  in  this  square, 
the  Konigshaus,  was  the  Emperor's  head-quarters  before  the  bat- 
tle, and  it  was  in  this  house  that  Schwartzenburg,  the  General 
who  commanded  against  him  in  this  eventful  conflict,  died — seven 
years  after.  Overwhelming  as  is  the  interest  of  such  a  spot,  with 
all  the  mighty  shadows  which  haunt  the  historic  memory  of  the 
visitor,  it  would  have  been  more  interesting,  far,  to  me,  to  have 
seen  the  tent  in  which  Napoleon  fell  asleep  on  the  battle-field, 
without  the  walls,  with  his  Marshals  around  him — in  the  hour, 
beyond  doubt,  when  Hope  finally  left  him — a  scene  which  is,  to 
me,  one  of  the  Diost  affecting  in  all  history,  and  one  of  the  grand- 
est subjects  for  painting  or  poetry.  It  will  perhaps  give  value  to 
the  little  I  can  say  of  my  walk  over  the  battle-field  of  Leipsic,  to 
refer  to  a  passage  or  two  from  the  history  of  this  memorable  strug- 
gle— passages  descriptive  of  a  most  thrilling  crisis  in  the  fate  of 
Europe,  and  the  picture  of  which  will  bear  recalling,  even  by 
those  most  familiar  with  the  remembrance.  As  the  reader  will 
recollect,  the  Powers  in  the  North  had  combined  in  a  desperate 
and  unanimous  uprising  to  throw  off  the  oppression  of  French 
conquest,  and,  by  a  succession  of  reverses,  the  hitherto  indomita- 


270  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


ble  eagles  cf  Napoleon  had  been  driven  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Bi- 
ster. The  English  had  sent  gold,  the  Prussian  women  had 
given  their  jewels  and  ornaments,  the  Emperor  Alexander  was 
present  with  his  army,  the  King  of  Prussia  with  his,  Berna- 
dotte  with  his  Swedes,  and  the  Saxons  deserting  by  thousands 
from  Napoleon,  though  their  King  remained  true  to  him.  Aus- 
tria, too,  had  just  broken  her  alliance  with  him,  and  Bavaria  was 
ready  to  cut  off  his  retreat  to  France,  should  he  be  defeated.  The 
French  army  was  worn  out  and  dispirited  by  unceasing  and  losing 
conflicts,  and  though,  wherever  the  Emperor  appeared  in  person, 
victory  was  sure,  his  Marshals  h:id  been  defeated  so  repeatedly, 
that  the  army  was  discouraged.  At  Leipsic  the  grand  rally  was 
made  for  a  decided  struggle,  however,  and  the  Allies  came  up 
for  the  "  Volkerschlact,"  or  Battle  of  the  Nations,  as  the  Ger- 
mans now  call  it,  with  the  tremendous  force  of  230,000  soldiers  ! 
Bonaparte's  army  numbered  136,000.  It  was  the  longest,  stern- 
est and  bloodiest  of  the  battles  of  Europe,  and  one  of  the  largest 
in  the  history  of  the  world. 

A  merry  company  of  German  peasants,  returning  from  the 
Fair,  and  going  out  towards  their  homes  by  the  bridge  over  the 
Elster,  walked  just  before  us  on  the  way  to  the  battle-field,  and 
their  laugh  was  in  our  ears  when  we  stopped,  over  the  stream,  to 
look  into  its  quiet  waters  and  know  it  for  the  scene  of  this  event- 
ful history.  The  Elster  here  is  deep,  but  narrow — perhaps 
twenty  feet  across — and,  with  its  smooth  current  and  grassy 
banks,  looked  like  anything  but  the  centre  of  one  of  the  bloodi- 
est spots  on  earth.  A  pretty  cottage,  trellised  and  surrounded 
by  a  neat  garden,  stands  just  on  the  outer  side  of  the  bridge, 
and  several  cannon-balls,  which  struck  it  during  the  battle,  are 


PONIATOWSKI.  2Y1 


now  sticking  in  its  walls,  painted  over  with  the  bricks  in  which 
they  are  half  imbedded.  The  battle-field  extends  from  the  bridge 
in  an  open  and  level  plain,  carefully  cultivated  but  unfenced,  and 
the  sole  occupants  of  the  ground  on  which  was  fought  the  Bat- 
tle of  Nations — the  field  on  which  lay  at  one  time  over  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dead  and  dying — was  a  single  laborer,  ploughing, 
with  a  horse  and  cow  harnessed  together !  I  should  mention, 
perhaps,  a  flock  of  crows  who  followed  in  the  newly  turned 
furrow,  picking  up  worms  that  had  in  them,  no  doubt,  the  blood 
of  heroes. 

Just  on  the  left  of  the  bridge,  on  the  inner  side  of  the  Elster, 
toward  the  town,  is  a  beautiful  garden  in  which  is  cultivated  (for 
sale)  the  memory  of  Poniatowski.  Six  silver  groschen  are  charg- 
ed for  entrance.  Opposite  the  spot  where  the  brave  Pole  was 
drowned,  is  a  small  temple  in  which  is  shown  his  saddle  and 
pistols,  his  autograph,  a  bust  of  him,  several  engraved  likenesses, 
and  the  bones  of  the  horse  drowned  under  him.  In  another  part 
of  the  garden  is  a  small  monument  erected  by  his  comrades  on 
the  spot  where  his  body  was  found,  four  days  after  the  bat- 
tle. He  had  been  thrice  wounded  during  the  day,  and  was  prob- 
ably exhausted  when  he  reached  the  river,  or  his  failure  in  an 
attempt  to  cross  so  narrow  a  stream  would  scarce  seem  credible. 
He  was  mounted  upon  a  chance  horse,  however,  his  own  having 
been  killed  under  him,  and  the  channel  was  choked  up  with  the 
struggling  multitude  driven  into  it  after  the  destruction  of  the 
bridge.  The  little  memoir,  hung  on  the  wall  near  his  relics, 
states  that  he  was  entreated  to  give  up  his  command  after  he  was 
wounded,  and  retire  from  the  field,  and  his  reply  is  the  last  word 
recorded  of  Poniatowski : — "  The  honor  of  the  Poles  has  been 


272  INVALID    RAMBLES. 


entrusted  to  me,  and  I  will  give  it  up  only  to  my  God  !"  Hevr 
strangely  irresistible  and  tlirilling  is  the  admiration  we  bestow 
upon  this  kind  of  heroism  ?  Yet  it  is  easier  than  a  great  manv 
other  things  men  do,  who  are  not  thought  much  of. 

My  pen  leaves  the  battle-ground  of  Leipsic  with  great  reluct- 
micQ ;  and,  on  re-reading,  I  have  destroyed  a  couple  of  pages  into 
which  the  interest  of  the  spot  inveigled  me — for,  though  a  visit 
to  the  scenes  of  great  events  stirs  enthusiasm  that  is  fresh  in 
itself,  the  record  of  the  enthusiasm  must  be  but  a  repetition  of  what 
has  been  often  said  and  thought  before.  It  is  easier  to  write 
about  a  pyramid  than  a  pebble,  (as  the  author  of  Proverbial 
Philosophy  would  say,)  and,  in  travelling  over  a  country  so 
thickly  sown  with  exciting  history  and  localities,  it  requires  some 
forbearance  to  leave  untouched  the  prominent,  because  hacknied, 
topics,  and  confine  one's  self  to  trifles  that  have  been  overlooked. 


v. 

The  Fair  (of  Leipsic)  has  its  suburbs,  and  our  daily  stroll  com- 
menced with  the  fruit  market,  open  at  this  particular  season  for 
the  winter  supplies.  We  lodged  immediately  in  the  rear  of  this 
acre  of  apple  women,  and  the  fragrance  we  met  on  coming  out 
of  doors,  was  like  the  smell  of  the  forbidden  tree,  so  cleverly 
described  by  Satan  to  Eve — 

"  A  savory  odor  blown, 
Grateful  to  appetite,  more  pleased  my  sense 
Than  smell  of  sweetest  fennel,  or  the  teats 
Of  ewe  or  goat  dropping  with  milk  at  even." 


LE1PSIC  APPLE-MARKET  273 


1  j»e  fruit,  of  many  very  fine  varieties,  was  heaped  up  in  bins, 
boarded  in,  by  each  owner,  between  four  poles,  and  on  the 
tops  of  the  poles  stood  gayly-colored  baskets  of  fruit  and 
flowers,  the  sales-woman  sitting  below  on  a  low  stool,  up  to  her 
knees  in  pears  and  apples.  As  you  walk  through  the  fragrant 
apple  lane,  you  are  assailed  with  the  most  complimentary  invita- 
tions to  stop  and  spend  a  groschen,  and  (like  Satan)  we  generally 
yielded — Germany  being  a  country  of  charming  independence  as 
to  the  where  and  how  of  eating.  At  night  a  large  cloth  is 
thrown  over  the  fruit  on  the  ground,  and,  as  the  market  is  on  the 
open  suburb,  with  not  even  a  covered  booth  to  protect  it,  I  won- 
dered, passing  it  late  and  seeing  no  one  on  the  watch,  at  the  con- 
fidence it  implied  in  the  popular  honesty.  A  moonlight  night, 
however,  chanced  to  reveal  the  secret.  It  will  not  be  in  this  gen- 
eration that  a  Yankee  farmer  and  his  wife  will  be  content  to  take 
apples  to  town  and  sleep  three  weeks  in  the  barrels — but  so  do  the 
Germans  at  Leipsic !  I  was  standing,  in  a  clear,  cool  autumn 
twilight,  after  a  walk,  watching  the  full  moon  and  setting  sun  on 
the  opposite  edges  of  the  horizon,  when,  happening  to  look 
around,  I  observed  one  of  my  pretty  acquaintances  in  the  apple- 
market  putting  on  a  night-cap.  Presuming  to  draw  a  little  nearer, 
I  saw  that  she  stood  by  a  barrel,  laid  on  its  side,  with  straw  in 
the  hollow,  and  she  presently  crept  into  this,  leaving  her  feet  out 
of  doors  under  a  blanket.  I  walked  up  and  down  for  half  an 
hour,  and  saw  that  every  one  of  the  twenty  or  thirty  families 
in  the  market  disposed  of  themselves  for  the  night  in  the  same 
way.  There  were  several  couples  among  them  who  occupied  the 
same  barrel,  (of  the  size  of  a  Long  Wharf  sugar  hogshead,)  the 
husband  smoking  his  pipe  outside  while  the  wife  "  settled  her- 
12* 


274  INVAI  ID  RAMBLES. 


self,"  and  creeping  in  very  gingerly  a  few  minutes  after.  With 
two  or  three  hundred  wild  students  mousing  about  for  fun,  one 
would  suppose  that  these  were  hardly  safe  dormitories,  but  the 
apple  merchants  seemed  to  have  no  fear  of  being  molested. 

A  little  farther  around,  upon  the  outside  of  the  promenade 
which  encircles  the  town,  we  came  to  the  cluster  of  theatrical 
and  show-booths,  which,  with  the  booths  for  refreshment,  form  a 
small  village  especially  devoted  to  merry-making.  Here  was  a 
circus,  and  at  the  door  a  fat  Turk,  in  pink  silk  jacket  and  white 
trowsers  and  turban,  offering  tickets  to  the  passers-by.  A  long 
succession  of  attractions  followed — a  dwarf  and  an  Albino,  a  me- 
nagerie, a  wonderful  athlete,  a  fortune-teller,  an  exhibitor  of  pic- 
tures, a  children's  railroad,  and  several  marvellous  monsters,  each 
separate  show  with  its  separate  band  of  music,  and  its  canvassers 
in  splendid  costume  screaming  at  the  door.  Away  in  the  rear  of 
the  show-booths  extended  the  lanes  of  refreshment-shops,  each 
shop  having  its  two  or  three  female  musicians  playing  indus- 
triously, and  between  every  two  doors  sat  a  blind  or  lame  man 
grinding  an  organ  and  singing  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  In  no  part 
of  this  noisy  village  of  fun  could  one  hear  less  than  four  or  five 
different  musics  at  once,  but  every  soul  seemed  gay,  and  the  dis- 
cords probably  had  the  effcct^bf  adding  somewhat  to  the  general 
mirthfulness.  I  was  struck  with  one  novelty  here  in  the  way  of 
bookselling.  A  man  stood  before  a  sort  of  a  drop-curtain  cov- 
ered with  pictures,  each  picture  representing  a  scene  from  one  of 
the  pamphlets  on  his  table.  With  a  long  pole  he  pointed  to 
these  pictorial  advertisements,  one  after  another ;  and,  as  he  told 
the  story  in  a  loud  voice,  a  remarkably  pretty  girl  handed  round 
for  sale,  among  the  crowd,  the  particular  book  which  it  illustrated. 


WADDED  CLOTHING.  275 


ds  literally  "  books  and  stationary,"  (the  books  for  sale  and 
the  pictures  stationary,)  and,  as  it  seemed  to  "do,"  I  made  a  note 
of  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  Reform  Booksellers. 

Between  this  and  .the  entrance  to  the  town,  there  were  still 
several  booth-villages — one  for  the  sale  of  boots  and  shoes  only, 
another  for  cheap  millinery,  a  third  for  wooden  ware,  and  a  large 
one  for  the  winter  clothing  of  the  poorer  classes.  The  German 
custom  which  I  before  alluded  to,  (in  my  letter  from  Frankfort,) 
of  wearing  knit  clothes,  so  wadded  with  cotton  that  they  are  like 
beds  to  walk  about  in,  is  here  ministered  to  with  great  ingenuity. 
Fuel  is  so  scarce  and  dear  in  this  country,  and  the  peasantry  so 
much  poorer  than  any  laboring  classes  with  us,  that  they  are 
compelled  to  find  some  substitute  for  more  fire  than  suffices  to 
cook  by,  and  they  fairly  wad  out  the  winter  accordingly.  Wad- 
ded leggings  and  wadded  jackets,  adapted  to  the  wear  of  both 
sexes,  are  sold  in  great  quantities — the  encasement  for  one  wo- 
man costing  about  two  dollars.  It  would  pay  to  import  these 
articles  into  our  northern  States,  for  a  suit  of  them  would  be  as 
good  as  a  winter's  fuel  to  give  to  a  poor  woman,  and  they  would 
be  excellent  under-clothes  for  winter  travelling  and  sleigh-riding. 

The  town  begins  on  this  side  with  a  gay  cafe,  and  here  you  en- 
ter at  once  upon  the  crowded  Fair.  A  new  sign  sticks  out  from 
every  apartment  of  the  buildings  on  either  side,  giving  the  name 
of  a  stranger  merchant  and  the  city  he  comes  from — though  to 
find  leisure  to  read  signs,  you  must  get  the  shelter  of  a  corner, 
for  the  crowd,  all  day  long,  is  like  two  opposing  tides,  and  it 
takes  all  your  attention  to  avoid  elbowing  and  collision.  As  you 
proceed,  you  find  the  street  divided  into  two  by  a  double  line  of 
booths  placed  back  to  back,  each  one  of  about  the  size  of  a  pri- 


276  INVALID   RAMBLES. 


vate  box  in  a  theatre.  These  little  three-sided  shanties  (for  they 
have  no  fronts)  are  made  of  boards  that  hook  together,  and,  be- 
tween Fair  and  Fair,  they  are  removed  and  stowed  away.  They 
are  the  property  of  the  town,  and  are  let  to  the  traders  for  three 
weeks.  The  people  who  occupy  booths,  mostly  live  in  them,  hav- 
ing about  as  spacious  accommodations  as  the  apple  women  in 
their  barrels ;  though  how  they  get  in,  or  sit  down,  or  stretch  them- 
selves to  sleep,  are  mysteries  I  was  not  lucky  enough  to  unravel. 
It  would  be  another  mystery  how  these  pretty  sales-women  keep 
warm,  (for  there  they  stand  all  day,  in  full  toilette,  selling  to 
customers  who  are  exercising  in  their  cloaks,)  but  that  one  knows 
what  wadded  envelopings  are  for  sale  in  the  neighborhood.  Most 
of  them  speak  French,  and  (industry,  accomplishments,  priva- 
tions and  all)  they  seem  wives  or  daughters  of  most  profitable 
exemplariness. 

The  rambles  among  the  booths  in  the  squares  are  the  most 
amusing,  because  the  lanes  are  as  narrow  as  a  church  aisle,  and 
you  pass  between  two  rows  of  little  shops  with  the  goods  on 
either  side  within  reach  of  your  arm — meanwhile,  moreover, 
running  a  gauntlet  of  persuasions  to  purchase.  Some  particular 
article  is  usually  recommended  to  you  as  you  pass,  and  it  is  gen- 
erally chosen  with  skillful  reference  to  your  appearance.  As  the 
German  women  do  their  year's  shopping  at  Fair  time,  and  come 
to  Leipsic  at  this  season  from  all  the  country  around,  (to  have 
their  gadding  and  money -spending  in  one  holiday  lump,)  you  can 
imagine  why  the  scene  is  untiringly  gay  for  two  or  three  weeks, 
and  why  there  is  little  difference  in  the  crowd  from  breakfast  to 
twilight.  The  great  values  exchanged  at  the  Fair  are,  of  course, 
managed  by  samples  and  in  warehouses  out  of  sight,  but  there  is 


PIPE  CELEBRITY  2Y7 


a  retail,  apparently  of  every  article  on  earth,  carried  on  out  of 
doors  at  the  same  time,  and  no  museum  could  be  more  interesting 
than  this  strange  aggregation,  at  one  time  and  place,  of  supplies 
for  the  wants  of  all  climates  and  customs.  Everything  is  here. 
All  that  you  could  find  in  the  Strand  of  London,  in  the  Bezestein 
of  Constantinople,  in  the  Bazaars  of  Persia,  in  the  windows  of 
Maiden  Lane,  in  the  porticoes  of  the  tropics,  in  the  studios  of 
Italy,  in  the  tents  of  Hudson's  Bay,  or  in  the  shops  of  Paris  or 
Pekin,  is  laid  out  on  these  open  counters  in  an  array  of  "parlous11 
temptation !  One  should  put  his  money  into  the  hands  of  an 
"  assignee"  before  he  takes  a  walk  in  the  Fair  of  Leipsic. 

The  feature  that  strikes  the  stranger  more  particularly,  is  the 
large  proportion  of  pipe  shops — one-half  the  trade  of  the  Fair, 
at  least,  seeming  to  lie  in  this  single  article  of  merchandise.  The 
variety  of  shape  and  embellishment  is  very  great,  as  it  may  well 
be,  in  this  proper  pipe-land,  where  there  is  no  luxury  which  takes 
precedence  of  smoking — the  wealthy  German  having  frequently 
his  room  hung  round  with  scores  of  expensive  pipes,  and  his 
servant  devoted  exclusively  to  the  care  of  them.  The  pictures, 
beautifully  enamelled  upon  the  bowls  of  the  pipes,  are  addressed, 
of  course,  to  the  tastes  of  the  buyers,  and  the  great  majority  are 
of  a  voluptuous  character ;  but  it  is  a  common  tribute  to  the 
popular  idols  in  history,  politics  or  religion,  to  carry  their  portraits 
on  the  pipe,  and  just  now  the  head  of  Ronge,  the.  Reformer,  is 
the  prevailing  favorite.  As  every  man  in  the  land  makes  an  in- 
separable companion  of  his  pipe,  and,  as  the  avenues  to  celebrity 
are  very  few  in  a  country  where  there  is  no  freedom  of  the  press, 
this  kind  of  pipe-immortality  is  much  valued. 

The  great  preponderance,  in  the  Fair,  of  articles  for  gifts,  shows 


th 

ha 


278  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


e  well-known  aflfectionateness  in  the  German  character — their 
habits  of  endearing  themselves  to  friends  and  relatives  by  making 
presents,  creating  an  immense  traffick  in  trifles  purely  ornamental. 
This  beautiful  trait  seems  to  extend  to  the  lowest  classes,  and  it 
is  very  curious  to  see  the  numberless  varieties  of  little  gaudy 
"fairings"  and  keepsakes  which  are  adapted  to  the  limited  means 
of  the  poor.  Among  other  keepsakes,  I  observed  that  there  was 
a  large  sale  of  garters  loith  poetry  inscribed  on  them.  They  were 
elastic  and  painted  to  imitate  wreaths  of  roses.  I  bought  a  pair 
for  sixpence  with  a  verse  upon  each,  of  which  the  following 
exhortation  to  industry  and  love  is  a  literal  translation : — 

While  night  with  morning  lingers, 

Awake  and  stirring  be, 
And  with  your  pretty  fingers 

Clasp  this  about  your  knee. 
When  day  with  eve  reposes 
*  And  stars  begin  to  see, 
Unclasp  this  band  of  roses, 

And,  dearest,  think  of  me ! 

This  is  poetry  where  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  looking  for  it, 
but,  to  the  taste  of  the  humble  and  virtuous,  not  misplaced. 
ffoni  soit  qui  mal  y  pense,  as  says  the  classic  moral  of  the  garter. 

The  articles  for  sale  throughout  the  Fair  would  make  a  long 
catalogue,  of  course,  and  I  wish  only  to  speak  of  such  as  are 
peculiar  to  the  country.  A  kind  of  in-doors  overshoe,  made  of 
felt,  half  an  inch  thick,  is  a  clumsy  comfort,  exclusively  German, 
I  believe,  and  sold  here  in  great  quantities.  I  have  already  ex- 
plained that  the  economical  classes  wear  their  fuel,  (in  cotton 
wadding,)  and  that  the  whole  Copulation  wear  their  sidewalks  (in 


RESOURCE  OF  SMOKING.  2t9 


heavy  boots.)  Each  individual,  in  doors,  wears  his  carpet  in  the 
same  way,  in  a  pair  of  these  felt  shoes.  The  German  houses 
have  wooden  floors  and  staircases,  neatly  waxed,  but  no  carpets, 
except  a  small  rug  to  step  out  of  bed  upon,  and  the  German 
doctors  say  that  the  fine  dust,  continually  sent  up  from  a  carpet, 
is  very  injurious  to  the  lungs.  The  Germans  (apropos)  are  also 
their  own  fences,  the  whole  country  being  unenclosed,  and  the 
cows  being  sent  out  to  graze  with  children  and  women  to  walk 
round  them  all  day  long.  As  a  plastic  cosmopolite,  one  does  in 
Germany  as  Germans  do — that  is  to  say,  wears  his  fire-place,  and 
his  sidewalk  and  carpet — but  one  becomes,  by  the  transfer,  as 
inelegant  as  the  Germans  proverbially  are ;  and,  for  one,  I  prefer 
a  country  where  flag-stones,  fuel  and  Kidderminster  are  not 
parts  of  a  walking  gentleman.  I  presume  also  that  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  American  farmers  would  as  lief  not  do  duty  as 
fences — centuries  older  than  ours  as  is  the  civilization  of  the 
country  where  it  is  done. 

Another  German  feature  of  the  Fair  is  the  innumerable  variety 
of  conveniences  for  carrying  cigars  and  tobacco — the  cigar-cases 
and  tobacco-pouches  being,  now,  of  all  degrees  of  ingenuity,  ele- 
gance and  expensiveness.  The  degree  of  resource  that  smoking  is, 
to  the  Germans  of  all  ages  and  classes,  is  wonderful,  most  of  them 
having  the  pipe  in  the  mouth  literally  three-fourths  of  the  time, 
and  flying  to  it  from  all  kinds  of  annoyance  and  restlessness. 
What  excitements  it  takes  the  place  of — what,  in  our  country, 
correspondently  absorbs  enthusiasm  and  quiets  the  nerves — would 
be  a  curious  matter  of  speculation.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
tobacco  stood'  the  Germans  instead  of  newspaper  virulence  and 
highly-spiced  politics — instead  of  the  getting  up  of  sham  en- 


280  INVALID   RAMBLES. 


thusiasms  and  the  gladiatorship  of  private  character — excite- 
ments which  are  wanting  in  Germany.  There  may  be  a  "  file  for 
the  viper"  in  the  favorite  weed  of  Captain  Bobadil. 


VI. 

The  costumes  seen  at  Leipsic,  during  the  Fair,  follow  the 
luxuriance  of  the  city  architecture.  In  my  daily  rambles  through 
the  crowded  labyrinths  of  the  booths,  I  became  familiarized 
•with  several  that,  at  first,  struck  me  as  exceedingly  novel. 
Among  these  were  some  of  the  Jewish  merchants,  who,  below 
the  eyes,  were  all  beard  and  bombazine — their  long  black  robes 
sweeping  the  ground,  and  their  beards  down  to  their  girdles — yet 
who,  withal,  wore  fashionable  hats  !  You  can  fancy  how  Shylock 
would  look,  on  the  stage,  in  a  modern  beaver !  There  were, 
perhaps,  twenty  or  thirty  of  these  Polish  Jews,  with  whose  noses 
and  beards  (for  we  could  hardly  say  we  saw  their  faces)  we 
became  acquainted  by  meeting  them  daily.  It  is  odd,  by  the 
way,  how  much  it  retards  and  embarrasses  one's  judgment  of  a 
man  to  have  his  mouth  concealed  by  a  full  beard ;  and  one  won- 
ders, after  a  little  studying  of  the  unshaved,  that  men  are  willing, 
(since  Providence  has  furnished  them  with  a  natural  mask,)  to 
walk  this  unsafe  world  with  such  a  tell-tale  of  the  character,  as 
the  mouth,  uncovered.  I  tried  in  vain  to  make  up  my  mind  as 
to  whether  these  Hebrews  were  refined  or  coarse,  good-tempered 
or  bad,  spirited  or  dogged — points  which  you  decide  at  a  glance 
when  you  see  the  mouth  ;  but,  though  their  hats  and  long  robes 
together  gave  them  a  ludicrous  appearance,  they  were,  otherwise, 
mere  automaton-like  figures,  moving  about  without  expression, 


DISGUISE  OF  BEARDS.  281 


and  seemed,  to  me,  only  to  differ  from  each  other  like  bales  of 
goods  of  different  length  and  bulk.  It  needs  some  symptoms  of 
a  white  shirt,  moreover,  to  relieve  the  bruin-look  of  an  animal  as 
black  and  hairy  as  these  spectacles  of  beard  and  bombazine  ;  and, 
whether  it  is  from  seeing  caricatures  of  the  devil  hiding  his  cloven 
foot  in  a  priest's  long  gown,  or  from  some  other  reason,  a  man 
scarce  looks  honest,  to  my  eye  at  least,  without  some  show  of  his 
locomotives. 

On  the  whole,  as  you  see,  I  thought  these  plump  Israelites 
dressed  very  unbecomingly,  though,  perhaps,  as  to  economy  and 
self-command,  very  <7h0-diciously. 

I  need  not  describe,  of  course,  the  well-known  customs  of  the 
Turks,  Greeks,  and  Armenians,  whose  bright  colors  were  sprinkled 
showily  over  the  crowd.  The  Tyrolese  dress,  too,  is  familiar, 
through  prints  and  ballet-dancers — the  tall  hat,  like  an  inverted 
morning  glory,  tied  with  a  gold  tassel,  the  la,ced  boot  and  the 
short  petticoat  of  green  cloth.  The  men  and  girls,  of  this  class 
of  the  Leipsic  traders,  are  principally  pedlers  of  gloves,  watch- 
guards,  suspenders,  garters,  etc.,  and  they  go  about  with  a  box 
of  their  wares  slung  over  the  shoulder,  offering  them  to  passers- 
by  with  proverbial  attractiveness  of  manner.  I  saw  no  Tyrolese 
whose  countenance  did  not  seem  to  me  a  fine  and  honest  one, 
and,  with  one  or  two  of  them,  by  little  purchases  and  constant 
meeting  in  the  booths  and  coffee  gardens,  my  brother  and  I  be- 
came somewhat  acquainted. 

There  were  various  different  costumes  worn  by  the  peasants 
from  the  different  mountain  regions  of  Germany,  only  one  of 
which  was  entirely  new  to  me.  This  was  a  female  dress,  which 
slightly  altered  the  geography  of  modesty — most  carefully  con- 


282  INVALID  RAMBLES 


cealing  the  chin,  and  yet  with  the  petticoat  shortened  up  to  the 
knee.  The  head-dress  was  of  black  silk,  and  set  upon  the  back 
of  the  head  with  a  high  frame  ;  but  with  a  curtain  which  formed 
a  sort  of  close  bag,  tightly  drawn  to  the  hollow  of  the  under 
lip,  and  thence  falling  below,  over  the  throat  and  shoulders,  and 
tucked  into  the  bodice.  The  best  specimen  of  this  costume  that 
we  saw  was  a  most  care  fully- dressed  girl  of  eighteen  or  twenty, 
who  followed  a  lady  about  the  Fair,  probably  her  servant.  We 
met  them  for  several  days,  and  watched  the  girl  closely,  to  dis- 
cover whether  her  chin  was  ever  released  from  its  black-silk 
imprisonment.  She  managed  it  like  a  point  of  propriety,  how- 
ever, carrying  her  head  like  a  boy  with  a  stiff  shirt-collar,  and 
never  turning  it  without  turning  the  whole  body  ;  though,  how  a 
peasant  could  submit  to  the  constraint  of  such  a  fashion,  we  were 
puzzled  to  understand.  She,  and  the  others  who  were  dressed 
like  her,  wore  blue  woollen  stockings,  and  showed  the  moun- 
taineer shapeliness  of  limb.  I  could  not  discover  from  what  part 
of  highland  Germany  these  chin-shamed  damsels  came.  It 
occurs  to  me,  while  remembering  their  head-dress,  by  the  way, 
that  it  exactly  does  the  office  of  a  man's  full  beard,  (in  concealing 
the  chin  and  throat,)  and  the  fashion  may  have  had  its  origin  in 
an  attempt  by  the  other  sex  to  imitate  the  covering  of  Nature 
which  we,  with  soap  and  razor,  displace  so  perseveringly.  The 
Turkish  costume,  you  remember,  however,  expresses  a  natural 
modesty  of  chin — the  men  concealing  it  by  the  beard,  and  the 
women  most  guardedly  by  the  folds  of  the  yashmac.  The  subject 
is  open  to  the  researches  of  the  learned ! 

My  jotting-book  has  one  memorandum  more  on  the  subject  of 
head-dresses.     Attracted  by  a  rnos'    picturesque-looking  dame 


GOOD  MIDDLE-AGED  CAPS.  283 


behind  the  counter,  we  entered  a  refreshment  booth,  one  after- 
noon, in  the  quarter  of  the  Fair  devoted  to  shows  and  theatricals. 
A  gaudy  sign  outside  set  forth  that  the  occupants  were  Dutch, 
and  sold  drinks  from  Amsterdam.  Three  female  minstrels  were 
playing  on  their  harps  and  singing,  in  a  recess  half  hidden  by  a 
curtain,  and  two  very  modest  maidens  came  forward  to  receive 
our  orders.  The  old  woman  and  her  two  waiting-maids  wore  a 
kind  of  cap  which  I  must  describe  for  the  benefit  of  such  ladies 
as  have  the  misfortune  to  be  secretly  middle-aged.  In  outline, 
then,  this  pretty  disguiser  of  age  was  something  like  a  lace 
helmet.  It  was  made  of  embroidered  lace,  and  completely  cover- 
ed the  forehead  to  the  eyebrows,  fitting  closely  to  the  beautiful 
curves  of  the  head,  and  only  raised  sufficiently  on  the  back  to 
accommodate  the  unseen  knot  of  hair.  Under  the  cap  was  visible 
a  sort  of  gold  corset,  which  came  forward  hi  two  embracing 
clasps  to  the  temples,  and  held  the  edge  of  the  cap  tightly  over 
the  crow's-feet  corner  of  the  eyes.  The  lace  edging,  with  this 
restraint,  descended  along  the  cheek  and  fell  off  like  relaxed 
wings  over  the  shoulders,  exceedingly  embellishing  even  the 
young  girls,  whose  hair,  foreheads  and  temples  it  completely  con- 
cealed. This  is  a  very  common  cap,  I  was  told,  among  the 
peasants  of  Holland,  but  a  more  becoming  one  I  never  saw,  for 
either  old  or  young ;  and  certainly,  as  a  disguiser  of  delinquent 
hair  and  other  blemished  neighborhoods,  it  is  worth  claiming  and 
copying  from  our  Dutch  ancestors.  Some  people  think  it  trifling, 
in  those  who  are  no  longer  young,  to  be  particular  in  dress ;  but 
it  seems  to  me,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  a  debt  which  woman 
more  especially  owes  to  the  general  sense  of  beauty.  It  is  a  pity 
they  must  grow  less  lovely  without,  as  they  grow  more  lovely 


284  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


within — pity  that  the  soul  embellishes  always  at  the  expense  of 
the  body :  but,  since  the  ravages  of  the  exterior,  which  feeling 
and  experience  plunder  so  mercilessly,  can  be  concealed  with 
beautiful  fabrics,  should  not  the  art  of  disguising  age,  (ut  mos  esl 
mulieribus,)  be  encouraged  rather  than  ridiculed  ?  Thus  moral- 
ized we,  at  least,  over  the  tepid  "schnapps,"  which  we  called  foi 
as  an  excuse  for  a  half-hour's  seat  in  the  booth  of  the  Amster- 
dammers. 

There  is  a  class  of  Hungarian  peasants  who  frequent  the  Fair, 
and  whose  dress,  though  principally  made  up  of  tatters,  is  re- 
markably picturesque.  Their  limbs  and  bodies  are  literally  cov- 
ered with  loose  rags  tied  on  with  twine  ;  but  they  wear  a  dirty, 
slouched  hat,  and  a  short,  dirty  cloak,  with  a  grace  that  is  truly 
singular.  They  all  seem  to  follow  the  same  vocation,  peddlers 
of  mouse-traps  and  other  little  articles  made  of  wire  ;  but  the  ten 
or  fifteen  who  were  strolling  about  Leipsic  were  all  youths  of 
marked  natural  beauty ;  and,  in  truth,  they  looked  to  me  more 
like  gentlemen  in  disguise  than  the  beggars  they  partly  were. 
These  common  Hungarians  have  rather  a  gipsyish  look — their 
brown  eyes,  and  straight  black  locks,  betraying  the  oriental  blood 
that  has  crept  up  the  Danube ;  and  the  expression  of  their  faces, 
too,  has  the  stamp  of  that  indomitable  wildness  that  fled  from 
the  proselvtism  of  Timour  Beg.  Their  hats,  cloaks,  and  skins 
are  all  of  one  color,  a  kind  of  smoked-brown,  that  would  tell  ad- 
mirably in  a  picture.  And  I  wonder,  apropos,  that  artists  do  not 
make  a  yearly  pilgrimage  to  Leipsic,  where  they  might  copy  from 
life,  in  one  month,  figures  of  greater  variety  and  picturesqueness, 
than  could  be  met  with  in  years  of  travel. 

The  students  add  not  a  little  to  the  variety  of  the  costume  of 


GERMAN  STUDENTS.  285 


L«ipsic.  The  University  is  the  most  expensive  and  fashionable 
one  of  Germany,  and  the  sons  of  the  wealthier  classes  and  the 
young  nobility  are  usually  educated  here.  Another  university, 
that  of  Halle,  being  within  a  short  ride  by  railroad,  and  Leipsic 
being  the  nearest  large  town,  the  bloods  of  that  "  cradle  of  knowl- 
edge" are  here  in  great  numbers  during  the  Fair.  These  Ger- 
man students  are  quite  the  most  luxuriant  specimens  of  juvenes- 
cence  that  I  have  yet  met ;  and,  indeed,  one  who  has  only  seen 
youth  under  the  restraint  of  other  countries,  looks  at  them  as  an 
English  gardener,  who  had  never  seen  a  grape-vine  except  as  it 
was  trimmed  of  its  superfluous  growth  to  bear  fruit,  would  look 
at  a  wild  grape-vine  smothering  trees  in  the  American  woods. 
The  despotic  governments  of  the  continent  have  made  the  discov- 
ery that  a  man's  brain  must  let  off,  sooner  or  later,  a  certain 
quantity  of  the  gas  of  insubordination ;  and,  by  encouraging  the 
opening  of  the  bluster-valves  during  college  life,  they  find  that 
the  stuff  for  patriotism  works  pretty  well  off  while  the  beard  is 
growing,  leaving  the  graduating  scholars  with  a  surfeit  of  vapor- 
ing, ready  to  shave  and  become  orderly  subjects.  License, 
incredible,  except  with  this  accounting  for,  is  granted  to  the  Ger- 
man students,  and  they  drink,  strut,  dress  oddly,  fight  duels  and 
talk  treason,  with  an  irresponsibility  of  fling  that  would  enchant 
the  wild  boys  of  Mississippi.  Most  of  them  have  a  scar  across 
the  cheek,  and  wear  a  broad  ribbon  over  the  breast,  marked  with 
the  number  of  their  sword  encounters — these  battles  being  only 
perilous  to  nose  and  cheek,  from  the  way  in  which  they  are  pad- 
ded up  for  action ;  but,  altogether — strut,  wound  and  ribbon- 
they  are  the  most  Alsatian  and  galliard-looking  of  juveniles,  par- 
ticularly in  their  more  showy  suits  of  toggery.  Their  necessary 


286  INVALID    RAMBLES. 


practice  in  fencing  developes  the  chest  very  finely,  and  they 
usually  carry  their  clothes  with  a  good  air ;  but  it  was  droll  to  see 
upon  what  shocking  bad  boots  they  were  willing  to  wear  very 
long  spurs,  and  how  unsuspicious  was  their  coxcombry,  with  ter- 
rible shortcomings  of  their  wearing  in  the  coats  and  trowsers 
they  had  designed.  Here  and  there  was  a  magnificent  fellow, 
however,  and  I  picked  out  eight  or  ten  among  the  scores  I  saw 
daily  at  the  Fair  and  at  the  coffee-gardens,  whose  companionship 
seemed  very  attractive,  if  one  were  an  idle  ornamental.  A  very 
popular  dress  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  horseman's  uniform.  It 
consisted  of  wash-leather  tights,  with  boots  up  to  the  thigh ;  a 
short,  collarless,  sky-blue  frock,  worked  <ill  over  with  black  braid, 
and  buttoned  up  to  the  throat,  a  loose  girth  of  heavy  cord  slung 
over  from  shoulder  to  hip,  a  heavy  whip  in  hand,  and  spurs  as 
long  as  a  toasting-fork.  With  a  little  cap  like  the  top  of  a  mus- 
tard-pot, and  moustache  a  la  sign-post — the  dress  was  that  of  a 
very  striking-looking  customer.  Long  hair  is  very  much  the 
fashion  among  them,  and  they  almost  invariably  wear  the  shirt- 
collar  in  the  style  of  spread  bread-and-butter.  They  seem  to 
think  it  looks  fierce  to  show  the  Adam's  apple.  Ko  two  of  them, 
however,  were  dressed  alike,  and,  to  a  man  who  wishes  to  see 
bold  experiments  in  coats,  trowsers,  and  moustaches,  Leipsic  would 
be  an  interesting  field  of  observation. 

I  have  omitted  to  mention,  by  the  way,  a  class  whose  exterior 
struck  me  more  than  any  that  I  have  described — I  mean  a  class 
of  mere  keepers-warm — whose  corresponding  stratum  of  human 
nature  I  never  saw  in  any  other  country.  There  were,  perhaps, 
a  half  dozen  of  them,  creeping  about  the  Fair.  They  were  not 
beggars,  though  they  seemed  to  have  no  vocation  except  to  walk 


DRESDEN.  287 


about  with  their  heads  shrunk  under,  as  if  with  a  tendency  to  be 
beasts.  I  tried  in  vain  to  catch  the  eye  of  one  of  them,  or  to  find 
any  one  who  could  make  a  guess  of  what  they  were.  Skins,  with 
the  fur  turned  inwards,  and  matted  with  filth,  as  if  they  slept  on 
the  ground  and  never  even  shook  themselves  in  rising,  were  their 
only  covering,  except  strong  shoes.  Even  the  fur  caps  on  their 
heads  ,were  tangled  with  their  hair,  beard,  and  eyebrows,  and 
evidently  were  never  taken  off;  and,  by  the  look  of  what  skin  was 
visible  about  the  eyes,  and  other  unerring  symptoms,  it  was  quite 
evident  that  they  never  shaved,  washed,  combed,  or  undressed. 
They  were  the  first  human  beings  I  ever  saw,  who,  being  sane, 
healthy,  and  not  beggars,  were  utterly  without  thought  of  their 
appearance.  People  who  had  more  the  look  of  men  "  surnamed 
Iscariot"  could  scarcely  be  conceived. 


VII. 


After  having  passed  a  month  with  my  brother  at  Leipsic,  I 
took  advantage  of  a  day,  that  looked  like  the  beginning  of  the 
Indian  Summer,  to  plead  for  a  vacation  from  crotchets  and  quav- 
ers, and  a  flying  visit  to  Dresden.  I  had  been  a  lodger,  during 
my  stay,  in  the  same  house  with  my  brother — a  boarding-house 
kept  by  the  widow  of  a  professor ;  and,  as  its  only  fault  was  the 
profusion  of  things  to  eat  and  the  time  it  took  to  eat  them,  (two 
hours  for  every  meal,)  I  may  be  recording  useful  information  by 
mentioning  the  amount  of  my  bill.  As  I  had  made  no  bargain, 
nor  inquiry,  as  to  the  charges,  and  had  given  more  than  usual  trou- 
ble— breakfasting  and  taking  tea  in  my  own  room,  and  ordering 
coffee  at  all  hours — I  expected  a  long  bill.  And  so  it  was — 


288  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


every  lump  of  sujar  recorded,  and  a  most  circumstantial  state- 
ment of  my  havings — the  sum  total,  however,  for  thirty  one  days, 
amounting  to  about  fifteen  American  dollars  ! 

The  railroad  from  Leipsic  to  Dresden  runs  a  gauntlet  of  ghosts, 
for  it  passes  over  fields  that  have  been  the  great  arena  of  the 
battles  of  Europe  ;  scarce  a  rood  of  the  seventy  miles,  probably, 
that  has  not  drunk  the  blood  of  the  victims  of  "glory."  As  there 
are  no  fences,  and  this  part  of  Germany  is  almost  a  dead  level,  it 
looks  Jike  one  broad  prairie,  specked  here  and  there  with  females 
laboring  in  the  fields,  or  sheep  watched  while  they  graze,  by  a 
family  of  women  and  children.  It  strikes  an  American  oddly  to 
see  no  farm-houses,  no  barns,  and  no  cottages.  He  wonders  where 
the  laborers  live  who  cultivate  so  carefully  this  vast  garden.  And 
it  seems  most  repugnant  to  our  idea  of  the  charm  of  rural  life, 
to  arrive,  every  five  or  ten  miles,  at  a  little,  pent-up,  crowded, 
wretched  village — like  a  cancer  cut  from  the  noisome  heart  of  a 
city — and  find  that  here  live,  in  propinquity  economical  for  their 
masters,  the  laborers  whose  toils  extend  for  miles  around,  and 
who  have  a  day's  work  in  getting  to  and  from  the  scenes  of  their 
labor,  besides  the  evil  of  constant  absence  from  home  and  certain 
exposure  to  unfavorable  weather.  It  is,  perhaps,  partly  a  result 
of  these  customs,  so  hostile  to  a  home,  that  the  women  of  the 
agricultural  class  in  Germany  are  on  a  level  with  beasts  of  bur- 
then— doing  all  the  drudgery  of  field-labor,  while  their  husbands 
loiter  with  their  pipes  about  the  beer  haunts  of  the  town,  acting 
rather  like  farm-overseers,  while  the  females  of  the  family  are 
farm-laborers. 

You  see,  every  where,  groups  of  women  doing  men's  work  in 
the  fields,  and  seld  ?m  a  man  employed,  except  in  driving  a  horse, 


WOMEN  HARNESSED  IN  CARTS.  289 


or  in  some  of  the  more  agreeable  kinds  of  farm  labor.  Public 
opinion  in  America  would  make  any  rural  neighborhood  "  too  hot 
to  hold"  a  man,  who  should  degrade  his  "  women-folk"  to  the 
condition  of  females  in  the  agricultural  class  of  Germany. 

In  any  weather  better  than  an  equinoctial  storm,  I  should  have 
felt  a  poetical  compunction  at  crossing,  for  the  first  time,  as  famous 
a  river  as  the  Elbe,  at  the  skipping  speed  of  a  rail-train.  Its 
banks  looked  wintry  and  unattractive,  however,  and  the  tall  castle 
of  Meissen,  (once  a  monarch's  residence,  and  now  a  manufactory 
of  porcelain,)  looked  drearily  worthy  of  its  latter  destiny.  The 
fourteen  miles  hence  to  Dresden,  give  the  eye  a  most  welcome 
relief  from  the  flat  country  of  which  it  has  become  weary.  The 
grouped  hills  along  the  shores  of  the  Elbe  are  bright  with  villas  and 
with  the  sparkle  of  decorative  culture,  and,  from  a  short  distance, 
Dresden  looks  more  Italian  than  German.  It  was  easy  to  see, 
even  at  this  season,  that  it  must  be,  in  summer,  the  most  lovely 
of  halting-places  for  the  traveller.  With  some  trouble  in  hold- 
ing on  to  our  hats  and  cloaks,  we  scrambled  from  the  terminus  to 
the  hotel,  taking  our  first  impression  of  the  world's  great  china- 
shop,  in  a  gale  of  wind  thoroughly  raw  and  uncomfortable.  On 
the  way,  I  called  my  brother's  attention  to  the  small  market- 
carts,  which  were  invariably  drawn  by  women  and  dogs,  or  wo- 
men and  a  donkey,  harnessed  together.  The  women  had  broad 
girths  over  the  breast  and  back,  and  drew  with  all  their  might, 
as  did  the  dogs — the  donkey  alone  requiring  whip  or  encourage- 
ment. The  three  animals  were  apparently  on  a  complete  level 
of  treatment  and  valuation. 

Our  carpet-bairs  set  down  on  the  bare  floor  of  a  large  bleak 
bed-room  in  a  German  hotel,  with  not  a  fire  accessible  in  the 

VOL.  i.  13 


200  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


3,  and  three  shivering  hours  to  dinner — weather  raw,  rainy 
and  wretched — we  welcomed  ourselves,  as  we  best  could,  to  the 
enchanting  capital  of — 

"  Sachsen, 
Wo  die  schonen  madchen  wachsen."* 

But  for  the  memory  of  a  delightful  friend,  who  had  resided  in 
Dresden,  and  had  embroidered  her  reminiscences  of  it  on  conver- 
sation which  I  treasured — but  for  these  spirit  footprints  around 
me — I  should  have  handed  over,  to  condign  forgetfulness,  my  first 
morning  in  the  "Florence  of  Germany."  Looking  into  each 
other's  blue  faces  for  counsel,  my  brother  and  I  concluded  to 
make  a  rush  through  the  rain  in  search  of  the  gallery  and  its 
famous  Madonna  del  Sisto,  though,  in  a  less  extreme  case,  I 
would  have  carefully  avoided  the  injustice  to  Raphael,  of  bringing 
so  congealed  a  heart  to  receive  a  first  impression  of  his  picture. 
We  had  chanced  upon  the  Hotel  de  Wein,  in  the  new  town,  and 
were  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  Elbe  for  convenience  in  sight-see- 
ing. Our  way  to  the  old  town  lay  over  one  of  the  most  costly 
bridges  of  Europe,  (built  by  the  sale  of  dispensations  from  the 
Pope  for  eating  eggs  and  butter  during  Lent,)  and,  as  a  bridge 
built  upon  eggs  and  butter,  I  was  not  surprised  to  find  one  of  its 
arches  carried  away  by  the  flood.  There  were  tremendous  fresh- 
ets hi  Germany  last  spring,  of  which  you  remember  the  accounts, 
and  this  arch,  (not  the  one  that  was  blown  up  to  cover  the  retreat 
of  Desaix)  gave  way  to  the  pressure.  There  is  a  temporary 
platform  across,  and  they  are  at  work  repairing  it,  the  men  at  the 

*  Saxony, 

Where  the  pretty  maidens  grow. 


ROYAL    PALACE.  291 


pumps  singing  day  and  night  most  uproariously.  What  with  the 
hurricane  on  the  bridge  and  the  blustering  chorus  under  it,  it  was 
more  like  an  access  to  the  dominions  of  King  Eolus  than  to  the 
city  which  Mrs.  Jameson  calls  "the  fine  lady  of  Germany." 

The  entrance  to  the  town,  from  the  river  side,  is  through  a  sort 
of  long  cave,  which  runs  through  the  King's  palace,  and  under 
his  suite  of  state  apartments — compelling  his  majestic  ears  to 
hear,  better  than  ajiy  one  of  his  subjects,  the  rumble  of  every  hack- 
ney-coach that  is  stirring.  Why  the  principal  thoroughfare  of 
the  town  should  thus  pass  under  the  King's  roof,  or,  rather,  why 
he  should  live  in  this  boarding-house  looking  building,  instead  of 
the  neighboring  Zwinger  Palace,  or  the  Japanese  Palace  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  I  was  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  his 
grand  chamberlain  to  inquire — but  I  ventured  to  wonder.  This 
residence  of  the  King  is  siamesed  to  the  Catholic  church  in  the 
square,  by  an  ill-looking  covered  gallery  extending  across  the  alley 
between,  so  that  he  walks  over  his  subjects'  heads,  both  in  going 
to  dinner  and  going  to  church.  The  latter  is  rather  symbolical, 
as  His  Majesty  is  a  Catholic  and  most  of  his  people  Lutherans. 
He  is  said  to  be  a  good  man,  and  as  much  beloved  as  Prince 
Johann,  the  heir-apparent,  is  disliked.  They  were  talking  of  the 
King's  having  been  seen  to  shed  tears  a  day  or  two  before,  while 
standing  in  his  balcony  to  see  the  troops  pass  in  review — the 
Prince  being  in  command,  and  his  impolitic  conduct  at  Leipsic 
just  made  public. 


VIII. 


Napoleon  said,  that  the  enthusiasm  of  others  abated  his,  and 
I  may  venture  to  confess,  that  the  enthusiasm  of  the  weather 


292  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


abated  mine.  Dresden,  with  all  its  charming  associations,  was 
un-get-about-able,  from  the  violence  of  the  wind  and  rain,  and,  as 
my  companion's  engagements  would  not  allow  him  to  go  to  bed 
"  with  orders  to  the  servant  to  call  us  the  first  fine  day,"  we  de- 
cided to  shorten  our  visit.  I  proposed,  myself,  to  return  to  Dres- 
den during  the  Indian  Summer;  but,  lest  some  cross-thread  might 
be  weaving  to  prevent  this,  we  picked  out,  from  the  sights  still 
unvisited — the  one  we  could  see  nowhere  else — the  sixty  thou- 
sand varieties  of  fragile  "vessels  of  honor."  He  who  has  not 
been  to  this  metropolis  of  China  at  Dresden,  is  only  a  rustic  in 
tea-pot-dom,  I  was  quite  aware  ;  and  I  was  incapable  of  risking 
the  opportunity  of  accomplishing  myself  in  the  knowledge  of 
every  known  shape  of  clay  that  would  respectably  hold  water. 

The  price  of  being  shown  through  the  vaults  of  the  Japanese 
Palace,  where  this  collection  is  to  be  seen,  is  about  two  dollars, 
ind  it  is  generally  visited  by  strangers  in  parties,  to  divide  the 
expense — only  six  being  allowed  to  enter  at  a  time.  Dr.  Bart- 
lett  joined  us  with  his  party  of  three,  and,  as  we  found  a  French- 
man waiting  at  the  door,  to  offer  his  sixth,  we  were  at  once 
introduced  to  the  king's  dish- washer-in-chief,  a  dignified  woman, 
who  prides  herself  on  having  washed  the  sixty  thousand  pieces 
of  china,  annually,  for  eleven  years,  without  breaking  an  article ! 
Her  portrait  should  be  engraved  and  pasted  on  every  kitchen 
dresser  for  a  bright  example. 

After  recording  our  names  in  the  visitor's  album  at  the  upper 
landing,  we  descended  to  the  vaults  and  commenced  our  tour  of 
amazement.  There  are  nineteen  rooms,  (separated  by  gates,  so 
that  the  visitors  may  not  wander  out  of  reach  of  the  custodian's 
eye,)  and,  as  the  roof  is  vaulted  and  low,  and  the  light  comes  in 


MUSEUM  OF  CHINA.  293 


rather  dungeon-wise,  the  individuals  on  the  shelves  (for  there  is 
only  one  piece  of  china  of  a  kind)  look  thoughtful  and  impressive 
— or,  as  the  Persian  zoology  says  of  the  griffin,  "  capable  of  reli- 
gion." Of  course  I  cannot  describe  even  two  of  these  five  hun- 
dred kinds  of  tea-pots.  The  article  is  not  depictable  in  language. 
But,  bewildering  as  is  the  variety  of  shapes,  it  is  curious  (I  caught 
myself  stopping  to  remark)  how  the  most  extravagant  and  origi- 
nal of  them  seem,  after  all,  only  one's  idea  "  better  expressed ;" 
how  sure  one  is  that  he  has  himself  thought  of  such  a  tea-pot,  or 
of  such  a  vase ;  and  how  one  would  have  to  take  clay  and  try, 
before  he  could  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  inventing  an  addition 
to  these  forms  of  convenience  and  beauty.  You  can  realize  the 
audacity  of  a  man's  thinking  himself  capable  of  conceiving  even 
what  is  here,  when  I  mention  that  the  mere  MS.  catalogue  of 
this  collection  of  vessels  (one  of  a  kind)  fills  five  folio  volumes  ! 

"  Of  course,  there  are  "  loves"  of  tea-pots  among  them,  and 
cups  and  saucers  perfectly  irresistible.  It  is  hard  to  keep  one's 
hands  off  them.  Touch  one,  however,  and  up  trots  the  irrefra- 
gable Royal  Dish-washer,  with  a  nervous  order  that  you  should 
put  it  down — holding  her  hands  under  yours,  meantime,  to  catch 
it  in  the  possible  event  of  your  dropping  it.  Some  of  the  speci- 
mens are  of  great  value.  There  is  one  set  of  china,  which  was 
given  by  the  King  of  Prussia  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  in  exchange 
for  a  regiment  of  dragoons  fully  equipped  f  Three  common-look- 
ing yellow  plates  were  shown  us,  one  of  them  broken,  which  are 
of  great  price — this  kind  being  made  for  the  Emperor  of  China 
alone,  and  the  exportation  punishable  by  death.  There  were  two 
or  three  specimens  of  Connecticut  earthenware  (squash  pie-plates) 
— in  significant  contrast !  Close  by  them  were  magnificent  pres- 


294  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


ents  of  Sevres  porcelain  from  Napoleon,  the  pictures  on  th°,m 
representing  scenes  of  his  own  history.  (One  wonders,  by  the 
way,  that  the  Saxons  are  content  to  preserve  these  reminiscences 
of  their  king's  unpatriotic  fidelity*  to  the  great  trampler.)  The 
Japanese  and  Chinese  fancy- ware  is  as  grotesque  in  design  as  it 
is  beautiful  in  material,  and  shows  a  national  sensuality,  gross  and 
ludicrous,  without  any  very  mischievous  wickedness.  Some  of 
the  China  vases  are  as  large  as  half-hogsheads — affecting  one  like 
a  rose  as  big  as  an  umbrella.  The  beginnings  of  the  art  of  mak- 
ing porcelain,  by  Bottcher,  the  discoverer,  are  treasured  with 
great  care.  They  are  dishes,  rude  and  unsightly  enough,  but  it 
would  encourage  a  beginner  at  anything  to  see  these  failures, 
which  are  even  advanced  steps  of  a  "  Bottcher,"  and  then  look 
around  to  see  the  splendid  perfection  he  ultimately  arrived  at. 
Some  of  the  things  we  most  admired  in  this  vast  and  unique  col- 

*  When  the  French  approached  Dresden,  the  magistrates  of  the  city 
came  out  of  the  gates  and  presented  themselves  before  Napoleon.  "  Who 
are  you  ?"  said  he,  in  a  quick  and  rude  tone.  "  Members  of  the  Municipal- 
ity," replied  the  trembling  burgomasters.  "  Have  you  bread  for  my  sol- 
diers ?"  "  Our  resources  have  been  quite  exhausted  by  the  requisitions  of 
the  Russians  and  Prussians."  "  Ha !  it  is  impossible,  is  it  ?  I  know  no 
such  word.  Furnish  me  bread  and  meat  and  wine.  I  know  all  you  have 
done :  you  deserve  to  be  treated  as  a  conquered  people,  but  I  spare  you 
from  my  regard  to  your  king :  he  is  the  saviour  of  your  country."  The  next 
day  the  King  of  Saxony  returned  to  Dresden,  and  placed  himself  and  all 
his  resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  French  Emperor ;  a  proceeding  in  the 
highest  degree  gratifying  to  Napoleon,  as  it  proved  the  adherence  of  a  val- 
uable ally,  secured  the  protection  of  a  line  of  fortresses,  and  restored  him 
to  the  rank  he  most  coveted — the  arbiter  of  the  destinies  and  protector  01 
the  thrones  of  European  sovereigns. — Alison. 


HISTORICAL  MUSEUM.  295 

lection  are  wholly  indescribable — I  am  happy  to  say  !  I  rejoice 
that  there  is  something  in  this  world  that  must  give  its  own 
first  impression — unfamiliarized,  I  mean,  by  inevitable  approach 
through  a  long  avenue  of  scribble. 

The  Japanese  Palace  is  a  fine  structure,  with  beautiful  grounds 
extending  to  the  bank  of  the  Elbe,  and  the  two  floors  above  the 
porcelain  vaults  are  occupied  by  the  Royal  Gallery  of  Sculpture, 
and  the  Dresden  Library.  Its  peculiar  architecture  gives  the 
palace  its  name,  the  inner  court  being  surrounded  by  gigantic 
Japanese  caryatides — grotesque  figures  of  human  monsters,  sup- 
porting capitals  in  the  places  of  pillars.  The  same  ludicrous 
Japanese  columns  are  seen  in  the  Zwinger  Palace ;  and,  by  these 
and  the  smaller  specimens  of  images  from  that  country,  which 
are  seen  in  the  porcelain  vaults,  the  stomach  and  face  seem  to  be 
Bought,  in  Java,  equally  presentable  parts  of  the  human  body 
the  dress  as  carefully  arranged  to  show  one  as  the  other. 

We  walked  through  the  gallery  of  Sculpture,  and  saw,  among 
other  things,  two  heads  of  old  Ptoman  Emperors  which  were 
remarkable  likenesses  of  Washington  and  Jackson.  There  is  a 
great  number  of  statues  in  this  collection,  and  they  stand  so  thick 
about  the  rooms  and  in  the  centres  and  corners,  and,  withal,  are 
on  such  low  pedestals,  that  it  strikes  one  more  like  a  nude  fancy 
ball  than  with  the  common  effect  of  statuary.  There  is  no 
medium  in  the  merit  of  sculpture,  and  a  great  deal  of  this  is 
rubbish. 

One  of  the  most  agreeable  hours,  of  our  last  day  in  Dresden, 
was  passed  in  the  Historical  Museum,  which  occupies  a  whig  of 
the  Zwinger  Palace — a  structure,  by  the  way,  that,  though  un- 
finished, is  one  of  the  prettiest  bijoux  of  a  beginning  for  a  royal 


296  INVALID  RAMBLES 


residence  that  I  ever  saw.  This,  I  believe,  is  the  richest  collec- 
tion of  armor  and  weapons  in  the  world.  The  suits  of  armor 
are  all  put  upon  manikins  and  mounted  on  wooden  horses,  so  that 
a  walk  through  the  semicircular  gallery  is  like  walking  down  a 
line  of  knights  in  the  saddle.  The  amount  of  it  all  seems  to  be, 
that,  for  lack  of  safety  out  of  doors,  men  went  about  in  iron 
houses ;  for  the  principal  design  must  have  been  to  shed  blows 
and  missiles,  as  no  human  being  except  a  Samson,  could  have 
used  his  arms  with  any  activity  under  two  hundred  pounds' 
weight  of  iron.  The  wearer  could  not  even  turn  his  head,  but 
was  obliged  to  look  straight  fonvard  through  th«  crevice  in  his 
helmet.  Augustus  the  Strong,  who  had  the  luck  to  be  a  King 
and  a  Hercules,  was  an  exception,  and  they  show,  in  the  same 
Museum,  a  horse-shoe  which  he  broke  with  one  hand,  while  he 
gave  a  coy  beauty  a  bag  of  gold  with  the  other !  No  cornmor^ 
man  could  walk  under  his  armor. 

The  curiosities  presented  in  this  Museum  are  capital  mnemonics 
for  history.  Here  is  the  sword  of  Luther  and  his  beer-jug;  the 
cocked  hat  of  Peter  the  Great,  (a  funny  little  thing  enough  ;)  the 
pistols  of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  worn  by  him  on  the  day  of 
his  death ;  the  armor  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  which  he  left  off 
to  put  on  the  buff  suit  in  which  he  was  killed ;  the  dagger  of 
Rudolph  of  Swabia,  who  lost  his  hand  while  raising  it  to  wound 
his  brother,  the  Emperor  Henry ;  the  iron  flails  used  by  the 
Bohemians  in  the  Hussite  war ;  the  sword  with  which  Chancellor 
Crell  was  beheaded ;  the  armor  of  Sobieski ;  and,  (in  the  way  of 
relics  with  more  tangible  and  fresher  associations,)  the  saddle  and 
boots  which  Napoleon  used  at  the  battle  of  Dresden.  These 
last  hang  up  in  a  glass  case.  They  are  slit  open  from  the  heel 


MADONNA  DEL  SISTO.  297 


up,  as  it  rained  during  the  day,  and  the  Emperor,  finding  them 
too  wet  to  come  off  with  ease,  expedited  the  process  with  a  pen- 
knife. It  shows  a  small  foot,  and  the  sole  is  quite  thin  and  with 
the  least  possible  heel.  Some  anecdote  writer  mentions  that  he 
had  beautiful  feet,  but  that  he  could  not  bear  the  least  compli- 
ment about  them,  and  always  wore  his  boots  too  large.  It  might 
have  been  in  these  boots,  by  the  way,  (for  it  was  while  he  was 
at  Dresden,)  that  Napoleon  stood  when  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
endeavored  to  please  him  by  the  remark,  that,  after  some  search 
among  the  archives,  he  had  discovered  the  Bonapartes  to  have 
been  sovereigns' of  a  principality  in  Italy.  The  reply  was  so  good 
that  I  should  like,  for  a  relic,  even  a  piece  of  the  boots  in  which 
he  stood  when  he  made  it.  "  Sire  !"  said  Napoleon,  "  I  thank 
you — but  I  have  no  need  of  ancestors  /" 
f 


IX. 


We  found  our  countryman  and  friend,  Dr.  Bartlett,  shivering 
before  one  of  the  master-pieces  of  the  gallery,  (the  door-keeper 
insisting  on  the  etiquette  of  leaving  cloaks  in  the  hall,  though  the 
rooms  were  damp  and  cold,)  and  we  joined  shiver  and  curiosity, 
and  made  the  round  of  the  rooms  together.  The  Madonna  del 
Sisto  was,  of  course,  our  first  point  of  pilgrimage.  All  the 
world  knows  it  by  engravings  and  copies.  Raphael  has  here 
given  immortality  to  Pope  Sixtus,  after  whom  it  is  named,  and 
whose  portrait  is  drawn  in  the  5gure  of  the  old  man  kneeling  to 
the  Virgin.  The  Pope's  (hies  for  this  world's  fame  should  be 
made  out  in  two  items — so  much  to  his  piety,  so  much  to  the 
13* 


298  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


artist's  pencil.  The  picture  takes  to  itself,  at  once,  a  separate 
chamber  in  every  one's  memory  who  sees  it.  Wilkie  said  of  the 
face  of  the  Virgin,  that  it  was  "  nearer  the  perfection  of  female 
beauty  and  elegance,  than  anything  in  painting."  The  two  child- 
angels,  leaning  on  their  elbows,  and  looking  up  towards  the  infant 
in  the  Virgin's  arms,  are  in  every  portfolio  of  engravings,  the 
world  over ;  but  you  see  them,  for  the  first  time,  in  their  true 
beauty,  in  the  picture.  Raphael  felt  the  celestial  prophecy  of 
children's  beauty.  No  lovelier  images  of  redeemed  humanity 
exist  in  art.  The  expression  of  the  Virgin  is  that  of  one  whose 
existence  is  illumined  within,  and  who  turns,  on  the  world  with- 
out, only  the  thoughtful  sweetness  of  submission  to  what  shall 
befall  her  in  life.  I  have  seen  approaches  to  such  expression 
in  living  faces.  The  picture,  altogether,  is  a  noble  master-piece, 
and  it  doubtless  does  one  good  to  lay  his  eyes  and  heart  open, 
for  a  while,  to  its  lovely  and  inspired  purity. 

In  this  same  room  is  the  recumbent  Magdalen,  with  an  open 
volume  under  her  breast,  perhaps  the  most  copied  and  favorite 
small  picture  in  the  world.  In  the  different  rooms  I  found  some 
thirty  or  forty  originals  of  the  pictures  I  had  admired  for  years, 
in  engravings  and  copies,  and  a  few  that  I  thought  I  ought  to 
have  heard  of — but  the  difference  between  seeing  and  reading  of 
pictures  is  as  great  as  between  eating  a  dinner  and  hearing  of  it ; 
and  as  this  gallery,  besides,  has  been  described  by  writers  innu- 
merable, I  will  hurry  over  my  mention  of  it.  We  made  three 
visits  during  our  short  stay  in  Dresden,  and  fed  upon  it,  as  all 
lovers  of  the  art  must.  It  is  a  glorious  collection,  and  was  treat- 
ed deferentially  by  Frederick  the  Great  and  Napoleon,  neither  of 
whom  ventured  to  injure  it  in  their  destructive  wars,  though  now 


MUSEUM  OF  BEAUTY.  299 


it  is  suffering  from  a  more  quiet  enemy,  neglect — many  of  the 
pictures  going  to  ruin  for  lack  of  care. 

Dresden,  by  the  way,  was  the  birthplace  of  Raphael  Mengs, 
an  artist  who  painted  closer  to  my  feeling  of  art  than  some  others 
who  have  more  renown ;  and  there  are  two  or  three  portraits  of 
him  in  the  gallery,  painted  by  himself — two,  particularly,  (in  pas- 
tel, representing  him  as  a  youth  and  as  a  man,)  to  which  I  was 
sorry  I  did  not  live  nearer.  The  "  world's  ninety-nine"  would 
call  them  portraits  of  a  plain  face ;  but,  for  the  hundredth,  there 
was  inexhaustible  beauty  in  it — a  beauty  afloat  in  the  expression, 
and  wholly  unfixable  and  indefinable,  even  though  visibly  trans- 
ferred to  a  picture.  He  drew  from  his  soul,  and  his  pencil 
obeyed  his  consciousness,  and  not  the  memory  of  "  his  face  in  a 
glass." 

These  pastel  pictures  are  a  peculiar  feature  of  the  Dresden 
Gallery — resembling  paintings  on  porcelain — and  there  are,  per- 
haps, hundreds  of  them,  which  seem  to  be  a  collection  of  por- 
traits of  the  beautiful  women  of  a  certain  period.  It  is  a  most 
interesting  variety  of  specimens  of  female  loveliness,  and  there 
is  here  and  there  one,  of  whom  the  type  in  real  life  seems  to  be 
lost.  I  wonder,  indeed,  that,  among  all  the  kinds  of  antiquaries 
whom  we  hear  of — men  curious  in  obsolete  coins,  pipes,  snuff- 
boxes, armor,  and  walking-sticks — we  never  hear  of  an  antiquary 
of  female  beauty,  a  collector  of  portraits  of  the  rarest  kinds  and 
degrees  of  the  loveliness  that  has  come  and  gone.  It  strikes  me 
that  a  Society  for  the  arrest,  on  canvas,  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  these  fleeting  valuables,  and  the  formation  of  a  gallery  in 
the  beauty  of  a  particular  epoch  should  be  treasured, 


300  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


would  be  as  reasonable  as  some  very  respectable  manias,  and 
much  more  gratifying  to  posterity. 

The  town  was  stuck  over  with  placards  announcing  that  STRAUSS 
(the  great  waltz  composer)  and  his  band  from  Vienna,  were  to  give 
a  concert  in  the  evening.  The  Germans,  with  their  musical  relish 
refined  up  to  Mozart  and  Beethoven,  speak  lightly  of  Strauss, 
and  call  his  heel-moving  compositions  mere  coffee-house  music ; 
but  music  they  are,  to  me,  (though  perhaps  but  half  way  be- 
tween science  and  nature,)  especially  when  played  by  a  band  that 
works,  under  him,  with  the  unerring  obedience  of  the  hairs  in  his 
eyelids,  and  I  was  delighted  with  the  opportunity  of  hearing  them 
once  more — my  remembrance  of  the  same  band  at  Vienna  some 
years  ago  being  still  very  vivid.  We  went  rather  early  to  secure 
seats,  but  found  every  one  ticketed  as  engaged,  and  were  obliged 
to  content  ourselves  with  standing-room.  Strauss  was  received 
with  great  enthusiasm.  He  is  a  small,  zealous-clergyman-looking 
man,  with  pale  face,  black  hair,  cut  very  short,  inevitable  little 
eyes,  tight  black  clothes  and  white  cravat.  He  leads  with  a 
violin  in  his  left  hand,  using  the  bow  to  mark  the  time,  and  play- 
ing occasionally ;  but,  in  the  excited  passages,  turning  toward  the 
critical  instrument  and  beckoning  out  the  emphasis  with  a  gesticu- 
lation that  would  "  tell"  in  a  pulpit.  Strauss  looks  like  what  we 
call  in  our  country,  very  expressively,  "  an  efficient  man" — mean- 
ing a  man  who  can  do  much  with  little — and  in  this  lies  probably 
the  secret  of  his  success,  for  his  original  genius  as  a  composer  is 
small.  The  music  he  gave  us,  however,  was  most  enjoyable,  and 
he  carried  his  audience  with  him  as  buoyantly  as  could  be 
desired. 


STRAUSS  S  CONCERT.  301 


I  was  a  little  surprised  in  his  audience.  They  were  two-thirds 
English,  and,  though  I  had  often  heard  that  the  best  English 
society  to  be  found  on  the  continent  was  at  Dresden,  I  was  not 
prepared  to  see  so  unexceptionably  high-bred  an  assemblage.  If 
there  is  a  style  of  people  on  earth,  unmistakeably  detestable,  it  is 
the  English  who  are  a  little  below  the  best  class  ;  and,  as  the  con- 
tinent is  the  place  where  these  come  to  breathe,  you  find  plenty 
of  them  in  most  public  places,  and  you  know  one  of  them  at  a 
glance.  Fcenam  kabet  in  cornu.  But  the  great  attractions  of 
Dresden  have  doubtless  drawn  thither  a  set  of  the  veritably  well- 
bred,  and  they  have  established  a  Jicdc/e  which  makes  the  place 
uncomfortable  to  those  on  the  wrong  side  of  it. 

From  Strauss's  own  band  have  sprung  his  two  most  formida- 
ble rivals  in  dance-music,  and  their  new  productions,  before  being 
danced  to,  are  heard  at  a  concert  given  on  purpose.  Lannerand 
Strauss  have  an  ingenious  way  of  getting  a  fair  expression  of 
public  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  their  respective  waltzes.  At 
the  door  the  company  receive  slips  of  paper,  marked  with  degrees 
of  approbation,  and,  for  each  set  of  waltzes  that  is  played,  they 
collect  a  vote  which  records  the  opinion  of  the  audience,  before  it 
is  known  whether  it  is  the  production  of  Strauss  or  Lanner.  This 
secures  an  impartial  opinion,  and  the  decision  is  said  to  be  very 
exciting  to  the  Viennese  delittanti. 


x. 

The  house  where  Tieck  lived,  in  the  market-square  of  Dresden, 
is  more  sought  out,  as  an  object  of  curiosity,  than  the  Marcolim 
palace  occupied  by  Napoleon ;  but  we  made  a  plunge  through 


802  INVALID    RAMBLES. 


the  rain  to  see  both — the  latter  partly  from  interest  in  the  dra- 
matic clique  that  was  here  when  Napoleon  was  treating  the  people 
to  gratuitous  theatricals — Talma,  Mademoiselle  Mars  and  others. 
Dresden  must  have  been  a  droll  little  extempore  Paris,  in  those 
days.  Tieck's  lodgings  were  on  the  second  floor  of  a  house  quite 
too  good  looking  for  a  poet's,  and  standing  on  a  corner  of  the 
market  where  cluster  the  flower- women.  Close  by  it,  apropos, 
stands  a  cafe,  where,  (for  a  wonder  in  Germany,)  we  found  a 
veritable  cup  of  coffee.  A  great  ivretcJiedness  for  me,  (the  word 
is  not  so  much  too  strong  as  the  coffee  is  too  weak,)  has  been  the 
lack,  in  all  the  German  cities,  of  this  sustainer  of  head  and  heart 
— the  substitute  they  give  you  for  it,  tasting  like  it  with  the 
resemblance  of  a  caricature.  I  fancy  the  secret  of  German 
coffee  has  been  plummeted  by  a  traveller  who  thus  writes,  and 
whose  information  I  give  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  if  there  be 
any  such  in  our  country,  who  cannot  afford  the  beverage : — 

"  Economical  substitutes  have  been,  of  late  years,  adopted  foi 
tea  and  coffee,  (in  Germany,)  as  coffee  is  now  generally  made 
from  acorns,  prepared  in  the  following  manner : — The  acorns, 
when  perfectly  ripe,  should  be  kept  for  some  short  time  in  a  dry 
place.  They  are  afterwards  cut  in  small  pieces,  first  throwing 
away  the  husk ;  then  roasted,  ground,  and  prepared  precisely  as 
coffee.  This  preparation,  the  use  of  which  is  recommended  by 
eminent  medical  men,  is  said  to  be  valuable  both  as  a  tonic,  and 
for  the  nourishment  it  affords.  It  is  daily  becoming  in  more 
general  use  throughout  Germany,  and  may  be  found  prepared  at 
all  the  chemists.  The  blossoms  of  the  linden- tree*  supply  the 

*  In  America,  sometimes  called  the  lime-tree. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  COAT-TAILS.  303 


place  of  tea  with  the  poor.  The  flavor  is  very  agreeable,  and  it 
is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  innocent  ptisan,  and  certainly  does  not 
irritate  the  nerves.  I  have  cured  myself  frequently  of  a  slight 
cold  by  drinking  plentifully  of  it.  The  German  doctors  recom- 
mend it  as  a  beverage  in  almost  every  disease." 

The  square  in  front  of  Tieck's  house  was  filled  with  our  old 
acquaintances,  the  traders  from  the  Leipsic  Fair,  (who  give  a 
short  repetition  of  the  Fair  at  Dresden  before  separating,)  and 
really  it  was  pleasant  to  be  recognized  from  the  counters  of  the 
booths,  as  we  passed  along  under  our  umbrellas.  The  Tyrolese 
merchants,  more  particularly,  have  a  national  manner  to  set  off 
their  picturesque  dress,  and  if  you  have  once  spent  a  couple  of 
groschen  with  them,  they  always  after  give  you  a  smile,  worth 
taking  in  a  strange  city.  Our  ears  renewed  acquaintance,  also, 
with  the  different  bands  of  wandering  minstrels,  who  are  only 
allowed  to  enter  these  German  cities  during  the  Fair,  and  who, 
during  that  merry  time,  'give  the  inhabitants  no  respite  from  list- 
ening. There  are  so  many  of  these  little  companies  of  musicians 
that  they  are  obliged  to  manage  very  carefully  not  to  run  the 
music  of  two  or  three  bands  into  one ;  and  there  is  sometimes  an 
amusing  contention  for  the  privilege  of  an  unoccupied  street 
corner.  The  rainy  weather  let  us  also  into  a  secret  of  their  cos- 
tume, which  is  perhaps  worth  recommending  to  sailors.  They 
dress  in  a  kind  of  uniform  jacket,  like  a  military  band  ;  but,  when 
it  rains,  they  produce  a  leather  coat-tail  that  buttons  on  behind, 
and  comfortably  sheds  the  water  from  the  small  of  the  back.  As 
rheumatism  is  particularly  at  home  in  this  part  of  the  body,  the 
defence  is  doubtless  founded  on  true  philosophy. 

I  should  doubt  whether  there  is  a  more  beautiful  promenade, 


304  INVALID  RAMBLES. 


for  its  length,  in  the  world,  than  the  Terrace  of  Bruhl,  a  sort  of 
upper-lip  over  the  river  which  is  the  mouth  of  Dresden.  It  is  a 
mountainous  bank,  high  above  both  the  Elbe  below  it  and  the 
town  behind  it,  and  commands  views  of  the  lovely  environs  of 
the  capital  for  many  miles  around.  The  palace  of  the  great 
vaujien  of  prime-ministers,  Bruhl,  stands  upon  it,  looking  neglect- 
ed and  deserted,  but  sumptuous  cafes,  for  the  public,  occupy  the 
most  commanding  parts  of  the  grounds,  and  it  is  said  to  be  a 
brilliant  resort  in  the  pleasant  seasons.  Howitt  says,  that  you 
can  see  from  this  terrace  the  cottage  of  Retzch,  (the  Shakspeare 
of  the  pencil,)  and,  if  that  is  so,  we  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing 
it,  though  without  recognition,  for  we  perused  the  mountain-sides 
in  vain,  with  admiring  eyes,  in  search  of  it. 

We  left  Dresden,  feeling  that  we  had  seen  it  to  the  greatest 
disadvantage,  but  I  hoped  to  return  to  it  some  day  in  the  sun- 
shine. By  general  testimony,  it  is  the  most  agreeable  of  the 
German  capitals,  as  a  residence  for  the  tasteful  and  quiet,  and  a 
charming  perch  for  the  traveller  tired  of  being  on  the  wing. 

Of  the  vast  plain  that  lies  between  Dresden  and  Berlin,  history 
says  a  great  deal,  but  the  traveller  can  say  very  little.  One 
travels  the  whole  day  in  the  rail  cars  without  seeing  a  bill,  and 
though  one  knows  that  human  blood  has  been  poured  upon  the 
fields  around  him  like  rain,  it  does  not  quite  remove  the  monotony 
of  the  ride,  to  remember  the  heroes  of  whose  fame  it  is  the  san- 
guinary garden.  Southey  expresses  the  one  common  feeling  in 
such  places : — 

"  Was  it  a  soothing  or  a  mournful  thought, 
Amid  this  scene  of  slaughter,  as  we  stood 


BERLIN.  305 


Where  myriads  had  with  recent  fury  fought, 
To  mark  how  gentle  Nature  still  pursued 
Her  quiet  course,  as  if  she  took  no  care 
For  what  her  noblest  work  had  suffered  there !" 

The  truth  of  these  beautiful  lines,  however,  is  a  very  little 
trenched  upon  by  the  fact  that  Nature  does  take  notice  of  spilt 
blood.  It  is  said  in  an  authentic  account  of  Waterloo,  that  "  the 
fertility  of  the  ground  on  which  the  battle  was  fought,  increased 
greatly  for  several  years  after  it  took  place.  Nowhere  were 
richer  crops  produced  in  the  whole  of  Belgium,  and  the  corn  is 
said  to  have  waved  thickest  and  to  have  been  of  a  darker  color, 
over  those  spots  where  the  dead  were  interred,  so  that  in  Spring 
it  was  possible  to  discover  them  by  this  mark  alone." 

I  had  left  my  brother  at  Leipsic,  and  kept  on  alone  to  Berlin 
— the  most  weary  six  hours  of  monotonous  travel  that  was  ever 
put  down  to  mortal  credit,  in  penance.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
day,  however,  a  very  handsome  and  gentlemanlike  youth  threw 
a  straw  to  my  drowning  spirits,  in  the  shape  of  a  proposal  to  go 
to  the  same  hotel  on  our  arrival,  and  by  eight  o'clock  we  were 
prolonging  existence  with  a  supper  worthy  of  the  Cafe,  de  Paris, 
for  my  friend  turned  out  to  be  an  instructed  traveller  as  to  com- 
forts and  provender. 


LETTERS 


FROM 


WATERING   PLACES 


LETTER  I. 

SHARON  SPRINGS,  June  15,  1848. 

DEAR  MORRIS  :  I  presume  that  a  very  literal  description  of  this 
place  would  be  of  value  as  well  as  of  interest  to  our  readers — 
many  of  them,  probably,  not  having  been  here,  and  even  those 
graver  persons  who  would  not  seek  it  as  a  fashionable  resort, 
being,  at  least,  liable  to  the  many  diseases  for  which  its  waters 
have  a  cure.  These  are  days,  when,  to  find  a  Bethesda,  you 
must  intrude  upon  a  haunt  of  the  gay. 

To  start  fair,  then — Sharon  Springs  are  five  hours  from  Al- 
bany, three  by  railroad,  and  two  by  stage-coach.  Passengers 
arrive  in  time  to  dress  comfortably  for  dinner.  The  drive  up  is 
not  particularly  picturesque,  but  it  is  through  woods  and  fields, 
and  this,  as  a  change  from  omnibusing  between  sidewalks  and 
brick  walls,  is,  at  least,  refreshing.  The  ascent  is  said  to  be  nine 
hundred  feet,  and,  at  the  last  mile,  you  come  within  the  embrace 
of  ttvo  wooded  mountain-ridges,  projecting  like  outspread  arms  to 
receive  you.  As  if  to  complete  the  picture  of  Mother  Nature  invit- 
ing her  children  to  a  fountain  of  health,  the  hotel  is  placed  upon  a 
swelling  upland,  lying  like  a  bosom  between  these  outstretching 


310  LETTER  I. 


arms,  and,  from  below  a  knoll  on  the  left,  issues  the  milky-hued 
spring  whose  salutary  flow  has  such  virtues  of  healing. 

The  hotel  is  a  vast,  colonnaded  structure,  with  accommoda- 
tions for  three  hundred  guests.  Mr.  Gardner,  "mine  host," 
caters  most  industriously  for  his  table,  having,  for  example,  at 
present,  two  thousand  wild  pigeons  fattening  in  his  dove-cotes, 
which  were  caught  in  nets  on  the  adjacent  mountains.  With  a 
capital  French  cook,  and  such  coffee  and  bread  as  are  seldom 
found  in  even  the  public  houses  of  the  city,  the  delicate  palate 
of  the  invalid  is  very  nicely  ministered  to,  while  those  who  come 
only  for  pleasure  may  respond  to  the  appetizing  breezes  of  the 
hills,  "  with  good  emphasis  and  discretion."  The  head- waiter 
looks  like  an  emperor,  and  has  his  ebon  adjuncts  in  exemplary 
training;  the  livery-stable  turns  out  good  equipages,  and  there 
are  billiards  and  bowling-alleys,  a  vast  drawing-room  with  its 
piano,  and  (for  the  romantic)  a  portico  whereon  rises  a  moon. 

The  far  view,  across  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk,  is  very  exten- 
sive and  varied — lacking  only  the  feature  of  water — while  the 
lap  of  Mother  Sharon,  spread  out  beneath  the  swelling  bosom  on 
which  reposes  the  hotel,  is  a  terrace  of  cultivated  fields  near 
enough  to  show  the  waving  of  the  grain.  On  the  southwest  side 
of  the  "  big  house,"  as  the  country  people  call  it,  lies  a  bowl- 
shaped  vale,  the  slopes  of  which  resemble  the  ornamental  woods  of  a 
park,  and  in  the  centre  of  this  is  a  village  of  twenty  or  thirty  build- 
ings, the  bathing-houses  lying  just  below  upon  the  stream.  A  hun- 
dred yards  farther  down  is  a  waterfall,  which  foams  over  a  sloping, 
rocky  descent  of  some  forty  feet,  the  noisy  brook  winding  its 
way  thence  through  a  dark  ravine,  furnished  with  the  shade  and 
rocks  requisite  for  the  betwc  m  meal  reveries  of  the  fashionable. 


SULPHUR  BATHING.  311 


Everybody,  here,  bathes  in  the  sulphur-water  once  a  day,  and 
the  "  Doctor's  orders"  being  to  bathe  always  on  the  emptiest 
attainable  stomach,  the  company  is  usually  assembled  at  the 
bathing-house  an  hour  or  so  before  dinner.  The  cripples  are  seen 
limping  their  way  down  the  hill  at  about  twelve,  and,  of  this 
halting  regiment,  of  course,  I  am  one.  The  beaux  and  belles  fol- 
low a  half  hour  later — the  ladies  carefully  shrouded  hi  sun-bonnet 
and  peignoir.  There  are  two  springs  on  the  hillside  above  the 
bathing-house,  each  with  its  pavilion  and  seats — one  called  the 
"  White  Sulphur,"  the  other  the  "  Magnesia  Spring,"  and  these, 
like  the  platform  at  Saratoga,  and  the  pump-room  at  Bath,  are 
the  places  ordinarily  used  for  commencing  acquaintance — conti- 
guity and  a  common  libation  being,  by  usage,  justificatory  of  the 
formidable  "  first  remark." 

The  Frenchman  mentioned  by  Sir  Francis  Head  in  his  "  Bub- 
bles of  Brunnen,"  must  have  been  peculiarly  constituted,  to  have 
said,  of  a  sulphur  bath,  that,  in  it,  "  on  devient  absolument  amou- 
reux  de  soi-meme"  The  ladies,  too,  whom  he  mentions  as  having 
a  wooden  lid  to  their  bathing-tubs,  on  which  their  gentlemen 
acquaintances  were  wont  to  sit  and  entertain  them,  (the  fair  heads 
being  alone  visible,)  must  have  been  willing  to  be  admired  in 
most  unperfumed  air,  for  the  aroma  from  the  warm  bath,  to 
speak  plainly,  resembles  that  of  eggs  that  have  outlived  their 
usefulness.  The  water  may  well  be  forgiven,  however,  for  it  is 
certainly  a  most  immediate  and  efficacious  agent,  acting  homoeo- 
pathically,  I  find,  by  the  way,  in  first  aggravating  the  disease  to 
which  it  subsequently  gives  relief.  Its  cures  of  cutaneous  disor- 
ders and  of  rheumatism,  as  narrated  by  the  resident  frequenters 
of  the  lounging-places,  are  very  wonderful ;  and,  indeed,  the  virtues 


312  LETTER  I. 


of  these  Springs  of  Sharon,  are  allowed,  I  believe,  to  be  quite 
equal  to  the  more  famed  but  less  acsessible  Sulphur  Springs  of 
Virginia. 

The  bath,  I  find,  leaves  a  very  soft  feeling  between  finger  and 
thumb,  but  whether  it  is  an  embellishing  cosmetic,  I  cannot  posi- 
tively say.  The  villagers  cook  with  the  water,  and,  of  course, 
breathe  its  atmosphere  perpetually,  but  they  are  not  particularly 
fair,  and  there  is  no  local  evidence  in  its  favor,  except  that  an  In- 
dian girl,  one  of  the  small  remainder  of  a  tribe  that  resides  here, 
is  the  belle  of  the  village,  and  has  a  skin  of  beautiful  texture  and 
clearness.  The  water  is  said  to  whiten  the  teeth,  and  hers  would 
lie  invisible  on  a  snow-drift.  It  acts  on  metals — sometimes  to  the 
visitor's  surprise — as  rings  and  chains  and  the  setting  of  jewels, 
unless  of  pure  gold,  are  turned  black  by  only  the  vapor  of  the 
bath-rooms.  I  found  half  a  dozen  pieces  of  silver,  in  one  of  the 
pockets  of  my  waistcoat,  completely  discolored.  Though  it  em- 
browns silver  in  the  pocket,  however,  it,  unhappily,  turns  no 
darker  that  upon  the  head — a  gentleman  with  "  silvery  hair " 
bathing  every  day  in  the  next  room  to  me,  and  daily  coming  out, 
1  regret  to  inform  you,  as  venerable  as  he  goes  in. 

I  have  taken  a  bath  between  the  foregoing  paragraph  and  this, 
and  took  the  opportunity  to  inquire  (of  my  sulphuric  aqueductor) 
as  to  the  parentage  of  an  Indian  girl  who  sits  by  the  spring.  She 
is  not  of  pure  aboriginal  blood,  her  father  being  a  Frenchman. 
There  are  two  families  here,  the  fathers  of  both  French  and  the 
mothers  Indian,  and  each  with  eight  or  nine  children,  but  appa- 
rently in  very  different  degrees  of  prosperity — one  occupying  a 
handsome  two-story  house  in  the  village,  the  other  living  in  a 
tent  up  the  ravine.  They  make  baskets,  fans,  bows-and-arrows, 


INDIAN  EMPLOYMENTS.  313 


etc.,  for  sale,  and  visits  to  them  are  among  the  amusements  of  the 
strangers  at  the  Springs. 

I  think,  with  the  foregoing  most  categorical  account  of  Sharon, 
1  will  stop — though  a  return  to  my  own  society,  (of  which  a 
complete  monopoly  has  given  me  rather  a  surfeit,)  is  the  alterna- 
tive of  writing,  and  I  would  scribble  away  for  an  hour  or  two 
longer,  if  my  damaged  eyes  would  let  me. 


LETTER   II. 

SHARON  SPRINGS,  June,  1848. 

DEAR  MORRIS  :  I  should  have  been  half-way  down  this  page — 
perhaps  ready  to  blot  and  turn  over — but  for  an  attraction  on  the 
portico,  which  you,  of  course,  suppose  to  have  been  a  lady. 
Many,  however,  as  are  the  new  arrivals  to-day  in  this  breezy 
resort,  and  happy  as  I  should  have  been  if  either  dame  or  dam- 
sel had  helped  herself  to  any  portion  of  my  time  or  acquaintance, 
the  delay  I  speak  of  was  unshared  by  any  seeker  of  fashion  or 
physic — a  pretty  butterfly  of  the  fields  having  been  my  only  de- 
tainer. As  what  I  saw,  and  remained  awhile  to  study,  touches 
the  great  question  of  comparative  psychology,  you  will  excuse  my 
minuteness  in  telling  you  all  about  it. 

My  chair  was  on  the  broad  step  of  the  colonnade,  and,  with- 
out thinking  particularly  of  my  immortal  part,  of  which  the  but- 
terfly, that  has  once  been  a  worm,  is  the  received  type  among 
poets  and  philosophers,  I  noticed  that  one  of  these  happy  insects 
had  taken  up  his  station  on  a  certain  spot  of  the  gravel-walk 
below.  You  have  often  observed,  I  dare  say,  how  dull  their 
wings  are  without,  and  how  gay  within,  and  how  they  stand 
apparently  on  edge,  opening  and  shutting  like  an  animated  sam- 


POSTHUMOUS    REVENGES  315 


pie-book  of  calico.  Having  sat  out  the  sunsets  of  several  days 
in  the  same  place,  I  had  a  previous  acquaintance  just  there — an 
exemplary  mamma  robin,  who  had  builded  in  a  maple  sapling  on 
the  left,  ("  woodman,  spare  that  tree,")  and  who  brought  in  the 
worms  from  all  quarters  to  her  young,  with  a  diligence  that  made 
me  sigh  for  such  an  agent  for  THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  I  presently 
noticed,  however,  that — fly  from  her  nest  when  she  would — the 
robin  was  assailed  by  the  butterfly;  and  that,  before  proceeding 
on  her  quest  of  worms,  she  underwent  a  dodging  chase  all  over 
the  lawn,  and  escaped,  at  last,  only  by  a  long  straight  flight  over 
the  fields.  The  valorous  insect  then  returned  to  the  very  same 
pebble  wherefrom  he  had  started,  and,  I  observed  in  the  course 
of  the  hour  I  watched  him,  that  he  darted  thence  to  attack  every 
worm-hunting  bird  that  skimmed  over,  and  invariably  drove  them 
before  him  in  terror. 

Now,  whether  loves  and  hates  can  be  carried  into  another 
existence  is  a  much  discussed  question,  upon  a  decision  of  which, 
in  the  affirmative,  a  prudent  man  would  make  some  difference  in 
this  world's  outlays  and  settlings-up.  We  learn  many  things  by 
analogy  and  comparison,  Nature  repeating  herself  frequently  in 
her  lower  and  higher  lessons.  Here  is  a  brilliant,  winged  insect, 
that  has  passed  through  a  previous  life  as  a  grovelling  worm. 
In  that  defenceless  and  subject  existence,  it  and  its  children  were 
the  prey  of  merciless  birds — gobbled  up  without  notice  if  seen 
abroad,  and  kept  in  constant  terror  when  in  the  family  bosom. 
The  principal,  if  not  the  first  use,  which  the  once-worm  makes  of 
a  new- winged  existence,  is  to  return  to  the  gravel  where  it  has 
helplessly  crawled,  and  make  war  upon  the  enemy  it  left  behind. 
It  can  do  this  successfully,  for,  though  possessing  none  of  the 


316  LETTER  II. 


bodily  strength  of  the  hated  bird,  its  mysterious  attack  inspires  a 
terror  which  unnerves.  His  worm-children  and  grand-children 
are  still  there,  crawling  and  defenceless,  and  though,  in  the  gor- 
geous butterfly,  they  do  not  recognize  an  ancestor,  he  can  alight 
close  by  the  old  hole  and  scare  off  those  victimizing  bills.  In- 
valuable departed  grandfather  ! — eh,  General  ?  But  put  this 
down  hi  your  psychology,  and — if  you  get  your  wings  first,  and 
"  there  is  anything  in  it" — let  us  hear  from  you,  in  a  quiet  way. 

And  now  to  business — for  I  sat  down,  not  to  bespeak  civility 
from  your  winged  hereafter,  my  dear  Morris,  but  to  give  you  a 
practical  account  of  Sharon  Springs  and  their  surroundings. 

Southwest  from  hence,  twenty-two  miles,  at  the  outlet  of 
Otsego  Lake,  and  astride  of  the  head-waters  of  the  Susquehannah, 
lies  Cooperstown.  It  is,  of  course,  among  the  "  lions"  of  Sha. 
ron.  I  felt  bound  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  it  as  a  double  home : 
first,  that  of  the  author  who  possesses  more  of  what  is  meant  by 
genius  than  any  American  that  has  lived ;  and,  second,  as  the 
home  of  the  bright  river  in  whose  valley,  a  hundred  miles  farther 
down,  I  lived  that  part  of  my  life  that  has  been  most  after  my 
taste  and  wishes.  The  Susquehannah  breaks  out  of  the  lake  just 
at  Cooper's  door,  and  it  is  a  magnificent  river,  as  his  is  a  magnifi- 
cent mind.  As  a  twin  fountain-head,  of  intellect  that  honors  the 
country  and  waters  that  fertilize  it,  it  is  a  spot  that  has  a  good 
right  to  be  famous,  and  indeed  is  already  fenced  in  by  apprecia- 
tion, and  ready  for  the  pilgrimages  of  the  poetical  and  pro- 
phetic. 

Devoting  the  hinges  of  two  days  to  the  excursion,  so  as  to  be 
at  the  lake  in  the  picturesque  hours  and  return  in  time  for  my 
diurnal  bath,  I  delivered  myself  over  to  a  one-horse  wagon  and 


CHERRY  VALLEY.  317 


driver,  at  that  contemplative  hour  of  the  afternoon  when  the 
dinner  is, 

"  Though  lost  to  sight,  to  memory  dear." 

We  began  with  a  straight  drag  up  the  mountain  above  Sharon, 
and  thence,  for  eight  or  nine  miles,  tracked  very  much  such  a 
line  as  a  cautious  ant  would  find  it  necessary  to  make,  after  the 
tack  of  a  Connecticut  sloop,  in  getting  from  leeward  to  windward 
across  a  cargo  of  pumpkins.  Railroads  and  steamboats  make  us 
forget  what  hills  are.  In  this  age  of  multitudinized  progress,  we 
lose  sight  of  how  toilsomely,  on  the  high-ways  and  by-ways,  they 
still  have  to  fag  it  through,  in  single  harness.  (No  sermon 
intended  this  time.) 

Eight  miles  on  our  road  we  came  to  the  edge  of  a  table-summit, 
overlooking  Cherry  Valley,  and  here  lay,  below  us,  a  patched- 
quilt  picture  of  innumerable  farms — fields  of  the  apparent  bigness 
of  fenced-in  thumb-nails,  and  red  houses,  like  cayenne  pepper, 
sprinkled  over  them.  What  a  pity  it  is,  (picturesquely,)  that  red 
ochre  is  cheaper  than  white  lead,  and  there  is,  therefore,  this 
economical  compulsion  upon  the  poor  man,  to  make  his  house  a 
deformity  to  the  landscape  !  Cherry  Valley  has  a  snug,  peace- 
able, nestled-down  look,  its  mountains  trimmed  up  high  like  a  well- 
disciplined  military  whisker,  and  its  meadows  looking  utterly 
incapable  of  burrs  or  thistles ;  and,  as  to  the  village,  if  there  ever 
walked  into  its  pretty  street  the  spirit  of  scandal  and  backbiting, 
such  as  finds  its  way  into  villages  more  exposed,  I  can  only  say 
that  no  corner  of  earth  can  look  innocent  enough  to  expel  it 
Roses  before  every  door,  damsels  reading  in  every  window,  side- 
walks tidy,  and  a  piano  vigorously  played  in  the  parlor  of  the 


318  LETTER  11. 


principal  inn — I  should  scarce  know  how  to  add  a  charm  to  it  as 
a  home  for 

"The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot." 

I  fancy,  as  I  saw  no  sign  of  a  cherry-tree  in  the  whole  town,  that 
it  may  owe  its  name  to  French  derivation,  and  was  possibly  called 
La  ValUe  cherie,  by  a  first  settler.  I  did  not  ask  the  landlord  at 
the  tavern,  for  he  looked  a  matter-of-fact  man  and  I  was  afraid 
of  his  spoiling  my  pretty  guess.  And,  apropos  of  that  landlord, 
he  seems  to  play  the  part  of  the  elf  in  fairy  land,  whose  business 
it  is  to  prick  mortal  visitors  hourly  with  a  pin,  and  so  keep  them 
in  mind  of  their  mortality.  "  You  a'nt  as  spry  as  you  used  to 
be!"  said  he,  as  I  hobbled  into  the  wagon  over  the  fore-wheel ; 
and  with  this  most  un-stirrup-cup  valedictory,  just  tart  enough  to 
call  my  thoughts  from  the  happy  scene  to  my  less  happy  self,  I 
drove  off,  dulled  to  the  beauties  of  Cherry  Valley,  but  musing  on 
the  uses  of  pity  and  on  the  sorrows  of  dilapidation  by  rheuma- 
tism. 

Our  first  view  of  Otsego  Lake  was  from  woods  high  above  it, 
and  by  glimpses  through  the  trees  which  hem  in  a  very  sudden 
descent.  An  abrupt  opening  showed  us  an  extremity  of  the 
lake  immediately  under  us,  and  a  town,  apparently  all  villas  and 
gardens,  laid  out  upon  a  natural  terrace  of  the  bank.  Away  west 
stretched  the  calm  plane  of  the  Otsego,  narrow  like  a  river,  (and, 
indeed,  of  the  average  breadth  of  the  Hudson,  I  should  say;) 
beautiful,  uncommonly  beautiful  mountain-shores,  shutting  it  in, 
and  the  slopes  on  the  far  side  charmingly  pictured  with  cultiva- 
tion. A  lake's  mirror  was  never  set  in  a  prettier  encadrement  by 
the  frame-making  eddies  of  the  retiring  deluge,  and  it  is  so  situated, 


SOURCE  OF  THE  SUSQUEHANNAH.        319 


by  the  way,  that  its  entire  re-gilding,  by  the  sunsets,  is  visible  from 
every  quarter  of  the  town.  The  path  of  the  eye,  from  Coopers- 
town  to  the  setting  sun,  is  up  a  nine-mile  mirror  of  wooded  water ; 
and,  what  with  such  a  foreground,  and  the  mists  and  reflections  of 
its  clear  and  placid  bosom,  they  should  see  more  of  the  "  dolphin 
glories"  of  the  West  than  the  inhabitants  of  other  places.  I  for- 
get, at  this  moment,  whether  Cooper's  books  are  rich  in  descrip- 
tions of  sunsets,  but  they  might  be,  without  drawing  much  on  his 
imagination. 

The  steep  road  down  the  wooded  mountain  above  Cooperstown, 
shoots  you  into  the  village  somewhat  as  a  trout  arrives  in  a  mill- 
pond  by  the  sluice,  and  it  was  partly  owing  to  this  that  I  crossed 
the  natural  curiosity  I  half  came  to  see — (the  outbreak  of  the 
Susquehannah  from  Otsego  Lake) — without  doing  it  the  honors 
of  recognition.  Over  the  bridge  which  spans  the  source  of  one 
of  the  world's  greatest  rivers,  drove  I,  (I  am  ashamed  of  my 
magnetism  to  confess,)  with  neither  tributary  look  nor  thought 
— as  unconscious  of  that  little  brooklet's  capability  to  go  on  wax- 
ing to  the  ocean,  as  is  the  dull  sixpence  which  you,  my  dear  Morris, 
pass  up  for  a  man  in  an  omnibus,  of  that  thumb-and-finger's 
capability  to  outlet  songs  on  their  waxing  way  to  immortality. 
(Let  us  take  a  little  breath  and  begin  again !) 

I  say  "  partly" — for,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  I  am  not 
a  man  to  pass  lightly  over  any  shape  of  running  water.  Streams 
have  souls — or  affect  me  as  if  they  had.  But,  on  one  point,  my 
driver  and  I  differed.  It  is  my  way,  when  there  is  a  prospect  of 
being  admired,  to  linger.  It  was  Ids  way  to  whip  up.  /  should 
have  slackened  rein  on  entering  Cooperstown — he  dashed  in  at  a 
pace  which  amazed  beholders,  whisking  me,  at  the  same  time, 


320  LETTER  II. 


over  the  incipient  Susquehannah,  and  leaving  me,  of  course,  very 
little  attention  to  spare  from  rheumatic  holdings-on.  I  found 
afterwards  that  I  had  also  shot  past  Mr.  Cooper's  baronial-look- 
ing gate  without  observing  it,  and,  indeed,  if  I  had  gone  to  bed 
immediately  on  arriving,  I  should  have  slept  upon  a  first  impres- 
sion of  Cooperstown,  consisting  of  two  liquefied  streaks  of  houses 
and  a  sudden  stop.  As  the  historian  of  John  Gilpin  says  : — 

"  When  he  next  doth  take  a  ride," 

(with  a  black  horse  and  sorrel  driver,)  your  humble  servant  will 
bargain  to  respectfully  locate  the  accelerations. 

I  have  not  much  to  say  about  Cooperstown,  now  we  are  there. 
It  looks  like  a  town  where  everybody  "  gets  along,"  where  there  are 
six  or  seven  rather  rich  people,  and  no  such  thing  as  a  pauper. 
The  principal  tavern  looks  a  good  deal  fingered  and  leaned 
against ;  the  "  hardware  stores"  are  prosperously  well-built ;  the 
boys,  playing  in  the  street,  draw  grown-up  audiences,  whose 
pleased  attention  to  the  unvarying  varlets  shows  that  there  is 
nothing  better  going  on ;  and,  in  the  windows  of  the  houses  in  the 
side-streets,  sit  young  ladies  without  a  sign  of  a  shirt-collar  in 
their  company,  and  this  last  bespeaks  a  town  of  exhausted  un- 
certainties— everybody's  exact  value  ascertained  and  no  object  in 
visiting  except  with  definite  errand  or  invitation.  In  towns  of 
this  size,  by  the  way,  young  ladies  have  hardly  a  fair  opportunity, 
as  any  handsome  male  natives,  who  have  an  ambition  that  would 
swim,  find  the  scope  of  a  village  too  bathing-tub-y,  and  are  all 
off  for  deeper  water  and  other  adorations.  By  glimpses  that  I 
caught,  over  rose-trees  and  picket  fences,  I  should  say  there  was 


FKMMOUK   COOPER.  321 

many  a  charming  girl,  wasting  her  twilights,  in  Cooperstown, 
while  I  saw  no  sign  of  the  gender  to  match — nothing  masculine 
stirring  except  very  little  boys  and  very  manifest  "  heads  of  fami- 
lies." In  the  great  punch-bowl  of  a  well-mixed  republic,  there 
should  be  no  lumps  of  sugar  that  are  not  duly  stirred  into  contact 
with  the  ingredients  they  are  made  to  temper  and  with  which 
they  are  ready  to  dissolve,  and  I  would  suggest  to  Miss  Beecher, 
(the  excellent  apostle  of  loveliness  unappropriated,)  a  turn  of  her 
phil-belle-opic  spoon  into  these  un-agitated  corners. 

I  found  Mr.  Cooper  at  home,  and,  as  there  was  still  a  remain- 
der of  daylight,  he  put  on  his  hat  at  my  request  to  show  me  the 
the  source  of  the  Susquehannah.  Whether  the  river  should  have 
presented  the  stranger  to  Mr.  Cooper,  or  Mr.  Cooper  presented 
me  to  the  river — which  was  the  monarch  and  which  the  "  gold 
stick  in  waiting" — is  a  question  of  precedence  that  occurred  to 
me.  It  was  something  to  see  two  such  sources  together — the 
pourings-out  from  both  fountains,  from  visible  head  and  visible 
head-waters,  sure  to  last  famous  till  doomsday,  and,  with  appre- 
ciative homage,  I,  mentally,  followed  the  viewless  after-flow  of 
both.  Mr.  Cooper,  meantime,  was  as  unpretending  as  any  other 
man,  and  the  Susquehannah  flowed  away — like  water  you  can  see 
the  whole  of. 

"  Home  as  Found"  leaves  little  to  tell  of  Mr.  Cooper's  house 
and  grounds.  It  is  a  fine  old  square  mansion,  with  a  noble  hall 
in  the  centre,  the  roof  and  window-mouldings  handsomely  archi- 
tecturalized  over  the  first  design,  and  all  within  having  an  air  of 
elegant  comfort.  The  author's  study  and  library  is  one  of  the 
large  rooms  on  the  lower  floor,  and  into  this  I  did  not  walk,  of 
course,  without  some  vague  feeling  of  the  presence  of  spirits  that 
14* 


322  LETTER  II. 


had  there  been  conjured.  It  is  such  a  wilderness  of  books  and 
papers,  prints  and  easy-chairs,  as  you  would  expect  to  find  it. 
The  light  comes  in  with  the  foliage-hue  of  the  wooded  lawns 
outside,  and  the  views  from  the  windows,  though  the  house  is 
in  the  centre  of  a  village,  are  such  as  you  get  upon  park-grounds 
from  the  most  secluded  country-house  in  England.  The  neigh- 
bors are  successfully  "  planted  out,"  and  the  walks,  in  the  fenced- 
in  groves  of  those  few  acres,  tell  very  little  of  the  close  vicinage 
of  streets  and  shops. 

Mr.  Cooper  was  to  start  for  Detroit  the  next  morning,  and  is 
as  youthful  and  vigorous,  at  the  approach  of  his  soixantaine,  as 
when  I  first  saw  him  in  Paris  in  '32.  He  says  he  is  a  little 
increased  in  weight — weighing  now,  two  hundred  and  nine — but 
feels  no  other  premonition  of  age.  His  peculiarly  manly  and  rich 
voice  certainly  rings  as  clear  as  ever,  and  his  pale  gray  eye — (by 
the  singular  inevitableness  of  which  you  would  perhaps,  alone, 
know  him,  at  first  sight,  for  a  man  of  genius) — sits  as  bright  and 
steady  in  its  full  socket.  He  walks  with  the  forward-bent  head 
of  a  thoughtful  man,  but  his  back  is  unbending.  Plethora  and 
politics  staved  off,  I  should  think  he  might  live  along  healthily 
with  his  books  for  several  decades  to  come. 

We  got  a  beautiful  view  up  the  lake  from  the  portico  of  a 
very  fine  house  belonging  to  a  married  niece  of  Mr.  Cooper,  the 
edge  of  the  water  being  just  over  the  garden  paling,  and  the  far- 
away spread  of  the  glassy  plane,  unshared  by  any  visible  dwell- 
ing, seeming  to  be  a  property  of  the  grounds  we  were  in.  From 
hence,  too,  we  saw  a  farm  of  Mr.  Cooper's,  two  or  three  miles  up 
the  lake  on  the  northern  shore.  The  sloping  banks  abound  in 
"  capabilities"  for  country-seats,  and  will,  at  some  future  day, 


DRIVE  ALONG  THE  LAKE.  323 


doubtless,  be  hauled  within  suburban  distance  by  the  iron  hook 
of  a  railroad,  and  gemmed  with  villas. 

On  my  return  to  Sharon  the  next  morning,  I  took  another  road, 
extending  for  the  first  six  miles  along  the  edge  of  the  lake — as 
\ovely  a  ride  as  a  man  would  care  to  take  without  a  lovely  com- 
panion. It  was  a  most  heavenly  day,  the  valves  of  every  odor- 
jus  leaf  wide  open,  and  poetry,  ready  to  be  written,  all  along  the 
road.  Most  any  body  would  have  been  charming  to  see  and  talk 
to,  but  I  was  all  alone — that  is  to  say,  with  a  rheumatism  I  could 
easily  have  forgotten,  and  a  driver  I  was  obliged  to  remember. 
We  reached  home  at  the  bathing  hour,  twelve  o'clock,  and  so,  I 
think,  old  fellow,  I  have  given  you,  in  this  letter,  the  history  of  a 
Sharon  day — from  bath  to  bath — and  you  see  what  may  be  done 
betwixt  doses  of  sulphur  !  The  ladies  are  talking  of  an  excursion 
to  Lake  Ut-say-an-tha,  twenty  miles  off,  for  to-morrow,  and  I  may 
tend  you  a  chronicle  of  that. 


LETTER    III. 

SHARON  SPRINGS,  June,  1848. 

DEAR  MORRIS  :  In  these  days,  when  Europe  is  a  snuff-box  of 
revolutions,  and  you  take  a  pinch  with  every  newspaper  you 
open — sneezing  at  nothing  short  of  ten  thousand  killed — it  seems 
very  idle  indeed  to  offer  you  so  poor  a  news-gay,  to  smell  at,  as  a 
letter  about  a  very  pleasant  day.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  politic. 
I  feel  a  kind  of  squirm  about  my  shoulders,  as  if  I  were  being 
dwarfed  by  the  inevitable  comparison  between  my  letter  and  the 
last  "  extra." 

Well — as  I  said,  or  sat  down  to  say — it  was  a  day,  yesterday, 
when  any  breakfast  ought  to  be  happy  to  be  eaten.  If  ours  was 
not,  I  can  only  say  that  coffee  and  rolls  never  concealed  their 
feelings  more  successfully.  Everything  looked  happy.  We 
gathered,  on  the  portico,  with  each  his  day  before  him,  and  to 
"go  somewhere"  was  the  unanimous  proposition.  Why  is  it,  by 
the  way,  that,  although  we  may  be  in  the  loveliest  spot  of  the  world, 
when  the  weather  becomes  delightful,  we  immediately  wish  to  "  go 
somewhere  ?"  Is  the  sun's  shining  more  sweetly  upon  a  place, 
the  way  to  make  us  discontented  with  it — as  the  way  to  make  a 
woman  love  us  less  is  to  love  her  more  ?  Take  this  little  brace 


LAKE   UT-SAY-AN-THA.  325 


of  contradictions  out  of  your  noddle,  as  you  go  up  the  river  on 
Saturday  evening,  and  discuss  it  with  some  of  your  brother  pen- 
dulums between  city  and  country.  Woman  and  weather  are  two 
things  I  would  gladly  know  more  of  before  I  die. 

I  dare  say  you  have  never  heard  of  Lake  Ut-say-an-tha.  Beat- 
ing me,  as  perhaps  you  do,  in  arithmetic,  I  am  your  match  in 
geography,  and  it  was  new  to  me.  Some  one  of  our  party  sug- 
gesting that  there  was  a  lake  of  that  name  within  driving  distance 
of  Sharon,  the  landlord's  copy  of  the  "  History  of  Schoharie  Coun- 
ty "  was  produced,  and  in  it  was  found  the  following  passage, 
which  I  copy  for  our  mutual  neglected  education : 

"  This  sheet  of  water,  which  affords  one  of  the  sources  of  the 
Susquehanna,  owes  its  poetic  name  to  the  following  circumstance. 
Ut-say-an-tha,  a  beautiful  Indian  maiden,  gave  birth  to  an  ille- 
gitimate child  on  its  romantic  shore  ;  and  a  council  of  chiefs  having 
been  called  to  deliberate  on  its  fate,  they  decided  to  drown  it  in 
the  Lake,  and  did  so ;  since  which  it  has  been  known  by  the 
name  of  the  unhappy  mother." 

To  the  township  of  Summit,  in  which  lay  this  bit  of  geo- 
graphical poetry,  the  distance  was  but  twenty  miles ;  and,  three 
ladies  promptly  consenting  to  accept  my  convoy,  we  were  off, 
half  an  hour  after  breakfast,  in  one  of  the  excellent  carriages  pro- 
curable here,  and  with  such  lunch  and  enthusiasm  as  could  be 
packed  at  short  warning.  It  was  that  kind  of  Sabbath  weather 
in  which  Nature  seems  dressed  and  resting — every  tree  looking  its 
"  Sunday  best,"  the  sky  clear  and  quiet,  and  the  fields  of  grain, 
like  the  Jews  in  Chatham  street,  giving  in  to  the  spirit  of  the 
day  by  a  more  quiet  demeanor,  without  making  it  look  gloomy  by 
shutting  up  shop  and  suspending  business.  From  Sharon,  which 


LETTER  III. 


is  nine  hundred  feet  nearer  the  stars  than  New  York,  to  Summit 
which  is  still  a  thousand  feet  higher  than  Sharon,  was  a  very- 
clear  job  of  excelsior  for  our  horses.  They  could  scarce  take  it 
too  easy,  for  our  taste,  however.  We  travelled  at  the  pace  of  an 
omnibus  going  down  town  with  one  passenger,  reading  every  hill- 
side from  top  to  bottom,  as  that  hindered  unit  reads  the  placards 
on  Niblo's  fence,  and  giving  every  farm-house  and  its  cattle  and 
children,  the  benefit  of  our  unprejudiced  criticism.  I  may  as  well 
advise,  here,  for  the  benefit  of  any  visitors  to  Sharon  who  may 
wish  to  make  this  excursion,  that  they  should  share  the  early 
breakfast  of  the  departing  guests  of  the  Pavilion,  and  start  for 
Summit  by  seven.  They  will  thus  reach  their  destination  by  one, 
have  time  for  a  ramble  round  the  lake  and  a  picknick  in  the 
woods,  and  adjust  the  shorter  time  of  their  down-hill  return  to 
any  part  of  the  afternoon  and  evening  that  suits  them. 

The  Kobleskill,  along  whose  banks  our  route  lay  for  several 
miles,  is  a  river,  which,  in  England,  would  be  large  enough  to 
be  sung  about — as  large,  for  instance,  as  the  Avon — and  upon 
its  silver  string  are  strung  hundreds  of  beautiful  farms,  with 
meadows  feathered  with  elms,  and  slopes  on  either  side  curv- 
ing up  into  well-wooded  hill-tops.  The  stream  is  inlaid  through  a 
long  mountain  valley,  and,  like  modest  worth,  is  better  estimated 
by  what  it  brightens  and  fertilizes  than  by  any  great  show  of 
a  current.  Every  four  or  five  miles,  the  farm-houses  cluster 
into  a  village ;  and  nice  and  tidy  they  looked,  as  do  all  villages 
cornered  away,  out.  of  the  reach  of  grand  routes  and  rail- 
ways. We  noticed  a  peculiar  style  of  architecture  at  one  of 
the  taverns — a  colonnade  formed  of  trees  with  simply  the  bark 
taken  off,  and  about  a  foot's  length  of  every  branch  and  twig  left 


KOBLESK1LL  GRAVES.  327 


projecting.  While  the  body  of  the  trees  was  carefully  painted 
white,  however,  the  projecting  stumps  were  daintily  colored  green 
— the  effect  being  that  of  a  portico  suffering  from  an  eruption ; 
and  less  agreeable,  probably,  to  those  who,  like  us,  come  from  a 
Bethesda  for  cutaneous  diseases,  than  to  travellers  from  the  other 
direction. 

All  through  this  region,  and  towards  Otsego  Lake,  as  well  as 
through  the  valley  of  the  Kobleskill,  I  observed  that  every  farm 
has  its  gi-ave ;  and  this,  not  fenced  in  or  secluded,  but  with  the 
white  slab  rising  from  the  middle  of  a  crop  of  grain,  or  a  field  of 
potatoes.  Among  such  prosperous  people,  this  cannot  be  from 
any  economy  of  hearse  or  church-yard  ;  and,  as  a  man  cannot 
very  well  see  his  barns  and  cattle  from  under  ground,  nor,  by 
force  of  vicinage,  rise  again  with  the  crops  sewn  around  him,  I 
do  not  very  well  understand  how  the  custom  could  become  so 
general.  It  set  me  to  thinking  whether  the  usual  post-mortem 
gregariousness,  practised  all  over  the  world,  was  based  upon  any 
strong  human  instinct.  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  is.  I  fancy  that, 
however,  while  above  ground,  one  may  like  to  shove  other  peo- 
ple off  to  a  distance,  it  is  natural  to  wish  for  neighbors  under 
ground,  even  in  elbow-jogging  propinquity.  They  have  a  lonely 
time  of  it,  those  Kobleskill  ghosts,  I  venture  to  say ;  and  if  I 
chance  to  die  in  Scholmrie  County,  I  trust  to  be  taken  where  I 
can  be  buried  sociably  with  my  kind,  and  not  put  invidiously 
away,  with  crops  that  come  to  light  again  so  much  more  expedi- 
tiously. 

There  is  a  ridge,  just  before  reaching  Summit,  from  which,  as 
from  the  joining  rims  of  two  contiguous  bowls,  you  can  see  into 
(wo  deep-down  and  mountain-girt  valleys,  which  look  as  if  they 


828  LETTER  III. 


might  have  been  made  by  Nature  for  two  separate  nations.  It 
is  like  getting  a  peep  over  the  edge  of  the  horizon  and  seeing 
where  the  sun  goes  to,  when  he  sets.  This  high  ground  is  studded 
thickly  with  balsam  firs,  whose  superb  cones  give  the  woods  a  look 
like  the  plantations  of  an  English  park. 

There  is  water  enough  in  Lake  Ut-say-an-tha  to  drown  a  baby, 
but  hardly  more.  A  man  of  a  trifling  turn  of  mind  might  call  it 
a  pond.  I  dare  say  it  covers  an  acre.  The  village  of  Summit, 
with  its  one  street,  and  the  lake,  must  look,  to  a  bird  in  the  air, 
like  a  button  and  button-hole.  There  are  no  woods  on  its  banks, 
and  the  water,  of  course,  looks  glary  and  unromantic.  We  had 
no  time  to  go  to  the  forest  beyond,  and  look  up  the  finger  of  the 
Past  that  had  beckoned  us  thither  ;  and,  after  a  dinner  upon  the 
one  salt  ham  which  stocked  the  larder  of  the  inn,  we  re-pocketed 
our  expectations  and  started  to  return.  It  was  a  heavenly  even- 
ing, and  the  drive  home  was  a  luxury  t«  .'-^member. 


LETTER    IV. 

SHARON  SPRINGS,  August  Y,  1848. 

,  my  dear  Morris,  what  do  you  wish  to  hear  from  this 
thousand-foot  elevation  above  you?  The  daily  wheel  turns 
around  very  regularly  here.  Our  three  purveyors,  the  French 
cook,  Mother  Nature,  and  the  leader  of  the  band,  supply  the 
three  principal  necessities  of  the  place — food,  sulphur  and  music 
— with  praiseworthy  abundance  and  regularity.  The  cook,  par- 
ticularly, it  is  thought  by  the  guests  here,  deserves  an  honorary 
diploma — the  table  being  of  a  most  un-watering-place-ish  delicacy 
and  excellence — and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  even  old  Mother 
Nature,  if  "a  character  from  her  last  place"  were  of  any  impor- 
tance to  her,  might  have  all  the  recommendations  she  could  ask, 
of  her  Sharon  brimstone  and  breezes.  Modestly  enough,  Nature 
asks  for  no  certificates,  though  by  the  depth  of  the  ravine  below 
the  spring — (of  course  intended  only  as  a  place  for  cripples  to 
throw  away  their  crutches) — it  is  evident  that  she  is  laid  out  for 
as  many  cures,  here,  as  are  recorded  of  her  sulphur  sisters  in 
Virginia. 

As  for  me,  (though  it  may  sound  something  like  a  "  sarsnparilla 
testimonial,")  T  daily  put  an  incredulous  leg  out  of  bed,  not  seem- 


330  LETTER  IV. 


ing  to  myself  to  be  the  same  man  whom  I  turned  the  key  upon, 
the  night  before  ;  and,  if  you  have  ever  had  this  feeling  of  waking 
up  for  somebody  else,  and  he  a  livelier  fellow  than  yourself,  you 
know  the  pace  and  pleasure  of  a  Sharon  convalescence.  Let  me 
add,  for  the  information  of  invalids,  that  the  inland  mountain-air, 
as  a  change  from  the  sea-board,  probably  goes  for  as  much  as 
the  medicinal  water,  in  this  agency  of  healing.  I  felt  my  quick- 
silver of  health  ascending  with  every  mile  of  up-hill  from  the 
Mohawk,  and  made  my  two  best  days  of  progress  before  resort- 
ing to  the  spring  or  bath.  The  air — now  in  midsummer — is,  in 
all  its  changes,  delicious  and  inspiriting.  Everybody  seems 
affected  by  its  quality  of  exhilaration.  The  belles — (and  there 
are  a  dozen,  with  as  much  beauty  as  Nature  could  give,  without 
injustice  to  others,  and  two  or  three,  who,  fortunes,  beauty  and 
all,  seem  to  be  receiving  the  reward  of  virtue  in  some  other 
existence — 

Repented  in  some  star,  and  this  in  Heaven — ) 

— the  belles,  I  say,  are  genuine-ly  merry,  frolicking  from  morning 
till  night  as  impulsively  as  shepherdesses  in  Arcadia  ;  and,  even 
in  the  faces  of  the  Bostonians,  of  whom  there  are  several  families 
at  Sharon,  the  indefinable  holier  than-thou-ativeuess  which  is  the 
phylactery  of  common  wear  in  that  exemplary  city,  relaxes,  here, 
into  a  forgiving,  if  not  into  a  partaking,  acquiescence.  For  sub- 
stantial good  spirits,  the  altitude  of  this  place  seems  to  me  to  be 
very  nicely  chosen — neither  so  high  as  to  listress  delicate  lungs 
by- the  thinness  of  the  air,  nor  so  low  as  to  dip  the  skirts  of  its 
breezes  into  the  languor  of  the  valleys.  I  think  I  shall  enlist  with 


INDIAN  BELLE.  331 


the  dandelions  and  become  an  annual  at  Sharon — thus,  possibly, 
when  in  the  "sere  and  yellow  leaf,"  continuing  ostensibly 
among  the  "  greens." 

I  find  I  have  transferred,  since  my  return,  a  crown  of  belle- 
ship,  of  my  unconscious  bestowing.  In  one  of  my  letters  from 
hence,  written  before  the  commencement  of  the  season,  I  men- 
tioned an  Indian  girl,  you  will  remember,  as  the  "  belle  of  the 
village."  Each  of  the  two  families,  residing  here,  has  a  French 
father  and  an  Indian  mother — each  has  nine  children — and  each 
a  daughter  at  the  age  for  a  first  love,  and  of  considerable  Indian 
beauty.  Here  the  parallel  ends,  however,  for  Fortune  has  be- 
haved with  her  usual  caprice,  and  made  one  family  aristocrat  and 
the  other  plebeian — given  one  a  handsome  two-story  house  in  the 
village,  and  left  the  other  in  a  tent  in  the  forest.  Like  whiter- 
skinned  people  under  similar  circumstances,  the  two  families  "  do 
not  visit ;"  but  they  both  follow  the  profitable  tramck  of  basket 
and  fan  making,  and  the  two  rival  girls  are  the  saleswomen  for 
their  respective  parents.  In  a  little  grove  on  the  hillside,  be- 
tween ,the  two  medicinal  springs,  sit,  all  day,  at  work,  Nansha 
and  Marie,  with  their  prettily  braided  wares  spread  out  before 
them,  and  a  half  dozen  dandies  lounging  in  the  shade  of  each 
one's  appropriated  tree  ;  and,  if  compliments  and  admiring  looks 
could  be  unbraided  from  the  basket-work,  to  whose  making  they 
have  been  the  accompaniments,  these  girls  might  weigh  theirs, 
I  fancy,  against  the  "gross  receipts  for  the  season"  of  any  belle 
at  Saratoga.  •• '  .  '•• 

Which  is  the  prettier  of  these  two  adolescent  wicker-merchants, 
is  a  topic  of  conversation  at  Sharon,  which  occupies  rather  more 


332  LETTER  ,V. 


of  the  fashionable  time  and  attention  than  either  the  French  revo- 
lution or  the  cholera  in  Russia.  As  might  be  guessed  from  seeing 
what  effect  of  relievo  is  produced  on  the  beauty  of  city  belles  by 
having  a  rich  papa  in  the  background,  Marie,  the  heiress  of  the 
two-story  house,  has  larger  audiences  of  young  men,  and  probably 
sells  many  more  baskets.  She  is  better  dressed  and  has  more  of 
what  the  country  people  call  "  manners"  than  her  poorer  rival 
ISTansha,  however — though  she  is  just  where  Nature  leaves  hei 
work  (as  a  mantua-maker  would  say)  "before  taking  out  the 
bastings" — though  the  edges  of  her  wheelbarrow-load  of  black 
hair  are  tanned  yellow  with  the  sun,  and  her  fingers  a  little  hard- 
ened with  twisting  the  fibres  of  the  ash — is,  to  my  taste,  the 
prettier  girl.  There  is  a  struggle  in  her  manners  between  French 
coquetry,  and  Indian  reserve,  that,  as  a  style,  would  be  worth 
transplanting  to  France,  and  perfecting  by  cultivation ;  and  her 
eyes,  to  a  connoisseur  in  those  stereotyped  commodities,  would 
be  valuable,  as  being  the  only  ones  of  their  kind,  besides  being 
glitteringly  bright  and  fun-loving.  My  vote  goes  for  Nansha ; 
and  it  was  Nansha  of  whom  I  bought  my  basket-work  when  here 
before,  and  whom,  without  mentioning  her  name,  I  alluded  to  in 
my  letter  as  the  "  belle  of  the  village."  A  copy  of  the  paper 
containing  this  "nomination"  was  sent,  however,  to  Marie,  by 
one  of  her  last  year's  admirers,  and  she  was  in  quiet  possession 
of  the  glory  (oh  newspaper  print,  thou  great  bestower  with 
nothing  to  bestow  !)  on  my  recent  return.  Since  setting  the  mat- 
ter right,  I  understand  from  Nansha  that  Marie  has  indignantly 
sent  back  the  paper  to  the  gentleman  in  Albany  who  invested  his 
sixpence  in  the  blunder ;  and  as,  for  the  week  past,  I  have  been 


SOCIETY  AT  SHARON.  333 


unable  to  catch  Marie's  eye,  in  my  stroll  between  sulphur  and 
magnesia,  I  presume  she  resents,  like  a  young  author,  an  editorial 
lift  given  to  a  rival. 

We  have  had  two  or  three  relays  of  "  charming  people"  since 
I  wrote  to  you,  and  if  Sharon,  as  a  fashionable  resort,  is  not  in 
the  ascendant,  (look  out  for  a  pun,)  it  is  because  mountains  will 
not  rise  with  the  leaven  of  the  better-bred.  The  general  harmony 
and  friendliness  of  the  society,  here,  is  spoken  of  as  unusual — not 
'd  difference  or  jealousy  having  come  to  light,  thus  far  in  the  sea- 
son. Most  of  the  families  propose  to  remain  till  driven  off  by  the 
mountain  autumn,  and,  after  the  fatiguing  gayeties  of  other 
watering-places,  this  will  be  a  delightful  retreat  wherein  to  fortify 
for  the  dissipations  of  winter. 

I  go  off,  to-morrow,  with  my  repaired  timbers,  to  take  a  week's 
ramble  among  the  rocks  and  waters  of  Trenton,  and  from  thence, 
if  Nature  tells  me  anytb'  ig  worth  repeating,  (for  there  is  no 
society  there,)  I  will  wriV  you. 


LETTER  V. 

TRENTON  FALLS,  August  14,  1848. 

DEAR  MORRIS  :  My  date  will  mislead  your  "  fond  anticipations," 
probably ;  for,  though  I  left  Sharon,  as  you  know,  some  days  since, 
I  have  not  been  all  this  time  steeping  my  brain-pores  in  the  deli- 
cious beauty  of  Trenton.  I  did  not  come  here  directly.  My  stay 
at  this  loveliest  of  places  was  to  be  shared  ;  and  I  went  first  to  Al- 
bany to  meet,  and  convoy  hither,  the  present  companion  of  my 
rambles.  I  have  been  here  two  days,  it  is  true ;  and  in  that  time 
one  receives,  at  Trenton,  a  month's  allowance  of  thought-yeast 
and  pulse-quickening,  and  with  some  show  of  reason  you  might 
say  "  write  !" — but  Nature,  in  such  prodigal  bestowings  of  beauty 
as  this,  converts  all  the  mind's  issues  into  forgetful  absorbents, 
and,  with  the  ordinary  communication  'twixt  brain  and  pen  thus 
justifiably  cut  off,  one  can  do  nothing  with  one's  fingers'  ends  but 
take  in  pleasure,  or,  at  most,  write  from  impressions  previously 
laid  away. 

I  left  Sharon  with  my  timbers  in  good  repair,  and  walked 
about  at  the  stopping-places  on  the  track,  looking  in  at  the  win- 
dows of  the  other  cars  in  search  of  acquaintances  and  handsome 
people,  with  a  keen  sense  of  privileges  restored.  Of  the  luxury 
of  legs  free  of  remainders,  it  takes  a  half-year's  rheumatism  to 


DAY  AT  ALBANY. 


teach  the  value — (ignorant  mortal  that  you  are,  you  healthy  map  !) 
— and,  if  life  were  not  so  short,  or  were  it  worth  having  at  the 
period  when  we  know  the  most,  I  should  think  a  course  of  classic 
sicknesses  might,  with  great  propriety,  form  a  part  of  a  liberal 
education.  For  poets,  indeed,  long  illnesses  are  the  necessary 
apprenticeship — the  nerves  having  comparatively  no  edge  or  sus- 
ceptibility till  impregnated  with  consciousness  by  pain — and  what 
you  and  I  might  have  been,  my  dear  Morris,  but  for  the  stifling 
of  our  powers  under  an  unfortunate  youth  of  health,  the  Angel 
of  un-used  capabilities  can  alone  tell  us. 

I  passed  a  day  in  Albany,  and,  Charybdis  of  trunks  and  carpet 
bags  as  that  place  is  to  most  people,  you  would  have  thought  a 
detention  there  «  a  bore."  Places,  like  people,  however,  may  be 
made  agreeable  by  a  foregone  enhancement,  and,  to  me,  the  dif- 
ference between  a  well  man's  day  in  Albany,  (which  it  was,)  and 
a  sick  man's  day  in  a  hotel,  (which  it  might  have  been,)  was 
almost  as  great  as  the  difference  between  the  breathing-room  of  a 
man  of  fashion  and  that  of  a  man  of  genius — one  having  a  place 
in  society  and  the  other  a  place  in  the  world.  So  I  pottered 
about  Albany  and  looked  in  at  the  shop-windows,  glanced  under 
bonnets  and  between  whiskers  with  the  ever-renewing  curiosity 
after  new  physiognomies,  distributed  my  unexpressed  likings  and 
dislikings  among  the  passers-by,  looked  no  inkstand  in  the  face 
from  morn  till  night,  (blessed  let-up-itude  to  me  !)  and,  from  time 
to  time,  remembered  that  I  was  well.  I  have  passed  duller  days 
in  Paris  and  Constantinople. 

Among  our  fellow-passengers  up  the  Mohawk  on  the  following 
morning,  we  had,  in  two  adjoining  seats,  a  very  impressive  con- 
trast— an  insane  youth  on  his  way  to  an  asylum,  and  the  mind 


LETTER  V. 


that  has  achieved  the  greatest  triumph  of  intellect  in  our  time, 
MORSE,  of  the  electric  telegraph,  on  an  errand  connected  with  the 
conveyance  of  thought  by  lightning.  I  sat  nearly  between  them, 
and,  with  the  incoherent  mutterings  of  a  lampless  brain  falling 
upon  one  ear,  and  the  easy  transitions  from  great  truths  to  trifles 
which  called  upon  all  the  attention  of  the  other,  I  was  in  the  place 
to  philosophize  upon  the  gift  of  reason,  and  the  value  of  life  with 
or  without  it.  In  the  course  of  a  brief  argument  on  the  expediency 
of  some  provision  for  putting  an  end  to  a  defeated  and  hopeless 
existence,  Mr.  MORSE  said  that,  ten  years  ago,  under  ill-health  and 
discouragement,  he  would  gladly  have  availed  himself  of  any 
divine  authorization  for  terminating  a  life  of  which  tbe  possessor 
was  weary.  The  sermon  that  lay  in  this  chance  remark — the 
loss  of  priceless  discovery  to  the  world,  and  the  loss  of  fame  and 
fortune  to  himself,  which  would  have  followed  a  death  thus  pre- 
maturely self-chosen — is  valuable  enough,  I  think,  to  justify  the 
invasion  of  the  sacredness  of  private  conversation  which  I  commit 
by  thus  giving  it  to  print.  May  some  one,  a- weary  of  the  world, 
read  it  to  his  profit. 

I  have  never  seen  the  Mohawk  to  more  advantage  than  on  this 
day's  journey  along  its  banks,  for  not  a  breath  of  wind  ruffled  its 
surface,  and  every  tree  and  upland  within  reach  of  the  reflection, 
showed  its  counterpart  with  another  sky  below.  With  the  usua. 
regret  that  the  dinner,  twenty  miles  farther  on,  should  draw  us 
past  the  exquisite  scenery  of  Little  Falls,  without  the  stop  which 
is  due  to  it,  we  rolled  on  to  Utica,  and  farther  than  that,  just  now, 
your  attention  shall  not  be  called  upon  to  follow  us.  Adieu,  and 
when  you  have  read  this  letter,  you  may  credit  yourself  with  ono 
sermon,  if  you  like. 


LETTER   VI, 

TRENTON  FALLS,  August  21,  1848. 

DEAR  MORRIS:  In  the  long  corridor  of  travel  between  New 
York  and  Niagara,  this  place,  as  you  know,  is  a  sort  of  alcove 
aside — a  side-scene  out  of  earshot  of  the  crowd — a  recess  in  a 
window,  whither  you  draw  a  friend  by  the  button  for  the  sake  of 
chit-chat  at  ease.  It  is  fifteen  miles  off  at  right  angles  from  the 
general  procession,  and  must  be  done  in  vehicle  hired  at  Utica 
for  the  purpose ;  so  that,  costing  more  time  and  money  than  a 
hundred  miles  in  any  other  direction,  it  is  voted  a  "  don't  pay" 
by  promiscuous  travellers,  and  its  frequentation  sifted  according- 
ly. In  gossiping  with  you  about  Trenton,  therefore,  I  shall  do  it 
with  cozy  pen,  the  crowd  out  of  the  way,  and  we  two  snug  and 
confidential.  And,  as  poets  and  "  literary  men"  are  never  poeti- 
cal and  literary  for  their  own  amusement,  you  will  expect  no 
"  fine  writing,"  and  none  but  a  spontaneous  mention  of  the  moon. 

For  my  five  dollars,  I  was  not  driven  fast  enough  hither  to  clear 
the  dust,  metaphorically  nor  otherwise.  I  should  recommend  to 
you,  or  to. any  who  come  after,  to  include,  in  the  bargain  for  a 
conveyance,  the  time  in  which  the  distance  is  to  be  done.  It  is  a 
ride  of  no  particular  interest.  With  no  intimation  whatever  of 

VOL.  i.  15 


338  LETTER  VI 


the  neighborhood  of  the  Falls,  we  were  driven  up  to  the  edge  of 
a  wood,  after  fifteen  miles  of  dust  and  rough  jolting,  and  landed 
at  a  house  built  for  one  man's  wants  and  belongings — a  house 
which  the  original  forest  still  cloaks  and  umbrellas,  leaving  only  its 
front  portico,  like  a  shirt-ruffle,  open  to  the  day,  and  which  I  pray, 
with  all  its  homely  inconveniences,  may  never  be  supplanted  by 
a  hotel  of  the  class  entitled  to  keep  a  gong.  Oh,  those  chalky 
universes  in  rural  places!  What  dibs  around,  of  green  trees 
and  tender  grass,  do  they  blaze  out  of  all  recognition  with  their 
unescapeable  white-paint  aggravations  of  sunshine,  and  their 
stretch  of  unmitigated  colonnade !  You  may  as  well  look  at 
a  star  with  a  blazing  candle  in  your  eye,  as  enjoy  a  landscape 
in  which  one  of  these  mountains  of  illuminated  clapboard  sits 
a-glare.  It  is  the  only  happy  alleviation  of  hotels  of  this  degree, 
that  they  usually  employ  a  band  during  the  summer,  and,  for  a 
slight  consideration,  you  can  hire  the  use  of  the  long  trumpet 
during  the  day,  and,  through  it,  look  at  some  parts  of  the  sur- 
rounding scenery  with  the  house  shut  out  of  the  prospect.  Is  it 
not  a  partial  legislation,  (apropos,)  that  distinguishes  between 
nose  and  eye — protecting  the  first  against  any  offending  nuis- 
ance in  public  places,  and  leaving  the  latter  and  more  delicate 
organ  to  all  the  dangers  of  ophthalmia  by  excessive  white  house  ? 
At  Sharon,  for  example,  any  man  may  start  without  precaution  to 
take  a  walk ;  but  a  man  who  should  turn  to  come  back  without  a 
pair  of  green  goggles  to  shield  his  eyes  from  the  glare  of  the 
hotel  as  he  approaches  it  from  any  distance  within  three  miles, 
must  have  let  in  less  rubbish  than  I  at  those  two  complaining 
gateways  of  the  brain,  and  have  less  dread  of  being  left  to  the 
mercy  o*f  that  merest  of  all  beggars,  the  ear  that  can  help  itself 


LANDLORD  S  TASTE.  339 


to  nothing.  There  are  satirists  on  the  look-out  for  a  national 
foible,  and  philanthropists  on  the  look-out  for  a  hobby — will  not 
some  one  of  these  two  classes  entitle  himself  to  the  gratitude  of 
scholars,  by  writing  or  preaching  down,  (or  in  some  way  "  doing 
brown,")  the  American  propensity  for  white  paint — the  excessive 
use  of  which,  particularly  in  this  climate  of  intense  sunshine,  is 
an  eye-sore  to  taste  as  well  as  to  overworked  optics  ? 

Mr.  Moore,  the  landord  at  Trenton,  is  proposing  to  build  a 
larger  house  for  the  accommodation  of  the  public,  but  this  ser- 
mon upon  our  Mont  Blanc  hotels,  with  their  Dover  Cliff  porti- 
coes, is  not  aimed  at  him.  On  subjects  of  taste  he  requires  no 
counsel.  The  engravings  a  man  hangs  up  in  his  parlors  are  a  suf- 
ficient key  to  the  degree  of  his  refinement,  and  those  which  are 
visible  through  the  soft  demi-jour  of  the  apartments  in  this  shaded 
retreat,  might  all  belong  to  a  connoisseur  in  art,  and  are  a  fair 
exponent  of  the  proprietor's  perception  of  the  beautiful.  In 
more  than  one  way,  he  is  the  right  kind  of  man  for  the  keeper 
of  this  loveliest  of  Nature's  bailiwicks  of  scenery.  On  the  night 
of  our  arrival  I  was  lying  awake,  somewhere  towards  midnight, 
and  watching  from  my  window  the  sifting  of  moonlight  through 
the  woods  with  the  stirring  of  the  night  air,  when  the  low  under- 
tone of  the  falls  was  suddenly  varied  with  a  strain  of  exquisite 
music.  It  seemed  scarcely  a  tune,  but,  with  the  richest  fullness 
of  volume,  one  lingering  and  dreamy  note  melted  into  another, 
as  if  it  were  the  voluntary  of  a  player  who  unconsciously  touched 
the  keys  as  an  accompaniment  to  his  melancholy.  What  with 
the  place  and  time,  and  my  ignorance  that  there  was  an  instru- 
ment of  this  character  in  the  house,  I  was  a  good  deal  surprised, 
but,  before  making  up  my  mind  as  to  what  it  could  be,  I  was 


340  LETTER  VI. 


"  helped  over  the  stile"  into  dreamland,  and  made  no  inquiry  till 
the  next  morning  at  breakfast.  The  player  was  our  landlord, 
Mr.  Moore,  who,  thus,  when  his  guests  are  gone  to  bed,  steals  an 
hour  of  leisure  from  the  night,  and,  upon  a  fine  organ  which  stands 
in  one  of  the  inner  parlors  of  his  house,  plays  with  admirable 
taste  and  execution. 

In  an  introduction  of  Mr.  Moore  to  you  as  "  mine  host,"  how- 
ever, mention  must  needs  be  made  of  his  skill  in  an  art  meaner 
than  music,  yet  far  more  essential — the  art  of  pie-making  and 
pudding-ry.  Nowhere,  (short  of  Felix's  in  the  Passage  Pano- 
rama at  Paris,)  will  you  eat  such  delicate  and  curious  varieties  of 
pastry  as  at  the  hostelry  of  romantic  Trenton.  Those  fingers 
that  wander  over  the  keys  of  the  solemn  organ  with  such  poetical 
dreaminess,  and  turn  over  a  zoophyte  or  trilobite  with  apprecia- 
tive cognizance,  (for  he  is  a  mineralogist,  too,  and  has  collected  a 
curious  cabinet  of  specimens  from  the  gorges  of  the  Falls,)  are 
daily  employed  in  preparing,  for  the  promiscuous  "  sweet  tooth" 
of  the  public,  pies  worthy  of  being  confined  to  Heliogabalus  and 
the  ladies.  The  truth  is,  that,  were  human  allotments  as  nicely 
apportioned,  and  placed  in  as  respective  an  each-other-age  as  the 
ingredients  of  Mr.  Moore's  pies,  Mr.  Moore  would  never  have 
been  by  trade  a  baker.  Happy  they,  notwithstanding,  to  whom 
the  world  says,  "  friend,  go  up  higher !"  though  in  this  case  it 
would  be  only  in  intellectual  gradation,  as  the  calling  of  hotel- 
keeper  is,  in  our  country,  half  a  magistracy,  from  the  importance 
and  responsibility  of  its  duties,  and  one  which  (by  public  consent 
daily  strengthening)  demands  and  befits  a  gentleman.  Mr.  Moore, 
(to  finish  his  biography,)  came  here  twfenty  years  ago,  to  enjoy 
the  scenery  of  which  he  had  heard  so  much;  and,  getting  a 


COMPANY  AT    TRENTON.  341 


severe  fall  in  climbing  the  rocks,  was  for  some  time  confined  to 
his  bed  at  the  hotel,  then  kept  by  Mr.  Sherman,  of  trout-fishing 
memory.  The  kind  care  with  which  he  was  treated  resulted  in 
an  attachment  for  one  of  the  daughters  of  the  family,  his  present 
wife,  and,  relinquishing  his  bakery  in  New  York,  he  came  back — 
heart,  taste  and  trade — wedded  his  fair  nurse  and  Trenton  for 
the  remainder  of  his  life,  and  is  now  the  owner  and  host  of  the 
very  loveliest  scenery-haunt  in  all  our  picturesque  country. 

Of  course  you  are  impatient  for  me  and  my  pen  to  get  to  the 
Falls — but  that  deep-down  autopsy  of  Nature,  with  its  disem- 
bowelings  of  strata  laid  down  before  the  time  of  Adam,  (accord- 
ing to  Professor  Agassiz,)  is  a  solemn  place  and  topic,  and  I  must 
talk  of  such  trifles  as  modern  men  and  their  abiding- places,  while 
my  theme  dates  from  this  side  of  the  Deluge.  I  am  not  sure  that 
I  shall  say  anything  about  the  Falls,  in  this  letter.  Let  me  see, 
first,  what  else  I  have  to  tell  you  of  the  manner  of  life  at  the 
hotel. 

As  I  said  before,  the  company  of  strangers  at  Trenton  is  made 
somewhat  select,  by  the  expense  and  difficulty  of  access.  Most, 
who  come,  stay  two  or  three  days  ;  but  there  are  usually  boarders 
here  for  a  longer  time,  and,  at  present,  three  or  four  families  of 
most  cultivated  and  charming  people,  who  form  a  nucleus  of 
agreeable  society  to  which  any  attractive  transient  visitor  easily 
attaches  an  acquaintance.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  agreeable 
than  the  footing  upon  which  these  chance-met  residents  and  their 
daily  accessions  of  new  comers  pass  their  evenings  and  take  strolls 
up  the  ravine  together ;  and,  for  those  who  love  country  air  and 
romantic  rambles  without  "  dressing  for  dinner"  or  waltzing  by  a 
band,  this  is  a  "  place  to  stay."  These  are  not  the  most  numcr- 


342  LETTER  VI. 


ous  frequenters  of  Trenton,  however.  It  is  a  very  popular  place 
of  resort  from  every  village  within  thirty  miles,  and,  from  ten  in 
the  morning  till  four  in  the  afternoon,  there  is  gay  work  with  the 
country  girls  and  their  beaux — swinging  under  the  trees,  strolling 
about  in  the  woods  near  the  house,  bowling,  singing  and  dancing 
— at  all  of  which,  (owing,  perhaps,  to  a  certain  gipsy-ish  pro- 
miscuosity  of  my  nature  that  I  never  could  aristocrify  by  the 
keeping  of  better  company,)  I  am  delighted  to  be  at  least  a 
looker-on.  The  average  number  of  these  visitors  from  the  neigh- 
borhood is  forty  or  fifty  a  day,  so  that  breakfast  and  tea  are  the 
nearest  approach  to  "  dress  meals" — the  dinner,  though  profuse 
and  dainty  in  its  fare,  being  eaten  in  what  is  commonly  thought 
to  be  rather  "  mixed  society."  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  from 
French  intermixture,  or  some  other  cause,  the  inhabitants  of  this 
region  are  a  little  peculiar  in  their  manners.  There  is  an  uncon- 
sciousness, or  carelessness  of  others'  observation  and  presence, 
that  I  have,  hitherto,  only  seen  abroad.  We  have  had  songs, 
duetts  and  choruses  sung  here  by  village  girls,  within  the  last  feu- 
days,  in  a  style  that  drew  all  in  the  house  to  listen  very  admir- 
ingly, and  even  the  ladies  all  agree  that  there  have  been  extremely 
pretty  girls,  day  after  day,  among  them.  I  find  they  are  Fourier- 
ites  to  the  extent  of  common  hair-brush  and  other  personal  furni- 
ture— walking  into  anvbody's  room  in  the  house  for  the  temporary 
repairs  which  belles  require  on  their  travels,  and  availing  them- 
selves of  whatever  was  therein,  with  a  simplicity  perhaps  a  little 
transcendental.  I  had  obtained  the  extra  privilege,  for  myself, 
of  a  small  dressing-room  apart,  in  which,  I  presumed,  the  various 
trowsers  and  other  merely  masculine  belongings  would  be  protec- 
tive scarecrow  sufficient  to  keep  out  these  daily  female  invaders ; 


TEMALE    INVASION.  343 


but,  walking  in  yesterday,  I  found  my  combs  and  brushes  in 
active  employ,  and  two  very  tidy  looking  girls  making  themselves 
at  home  without  shutting  the  door,  and  no  more  disturbed  by  my 
entree  than  if  I  had  been  a  large  male  fly.  As  friends  were  wait- 
ing, I  apologized  for  intruding  long  enough  to  take  a  pan*  of  boots 
out  from  under  their  protection,  but  my  presence  was  evidently 
no  interruption.  One  of  the  girls,  (a  tall  figure,  like  a  woman  in 
two  syllables  connected  by  a  hyphen  at  the  waist,)  continued  to 
look  at  the  back  of  her  dress  in  the  glass,  a  la  Venus  Callipige, 
and  the  other  went  on  threading  her  most  prodigal  chevelure  with 
my  doubtless  very  embarrassed  though  unresisting  hair-brush, 
and  so  I  abandoned  the  field,  as  I  was  of  course  expected  to  do. 
As  they  did  not  shut  the  door  after  my  retreat,  I  presume  that, 
by  the  code  of  morals  and  manners  hereabouts,  a  man's  pre-occu- 
pancy  of  a  room  simply  entitles  him  to  come  and  go  at  pleasure — 
the  unoccupied  portions  and  conveniences  of  the  apartment  open, 
meantime,  to  feminine  availment  and  partaking.  I  do  not  know 
that  they  would  go  the  length  of  "  fraternizing"  one's  tooth-brush, 
but,  with  the  exception  of  locking  up  that  rather  confidential 
article,  I  give  in  to  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  have  ever 
since  left  open  door  to  the  ladies — which  "  severe  trial"  please 
mention,  if  convenient,  in  my  biography. 

If  you  have  ever  "  sung  in  the  choir,"  my  dear  Morris,  you 
know  how  difficult  it  is  to  stop  before  the  organ  leaves  off,  and, 
with  the  sound  of  running  water,  which  is  the  eternal  accompani- 
ment here,  I  find  one  keeps  doing  whatever  one  is  about — drink- 
ing tea  or  drizzling  ink — with  pertinacious  continuance.  Hence 
this  very  long  letter.  The  atmosphere  seems  otherwise  favorable 
to  writing,  however,  for  the  front  of  the  house  is  covered  with 


344  LETTER   VI. 


inscriptions  of  wit  and  sentiment — and  with  one  specimen  I  will 
make  an  effort  to  taper  off  into  an  adieu.  In  a  neat  hand,  a  man 
records  the  arrival  of  himself  "and  servant,"  below  which  is  the 
following  inscription:— 

"  G.  Squires,  wife  and  two  babies.  No  servant,  owing  to  the 
hardness  of  the  times." 

And  under  this,  again : — 

"  G.  W.  Douglas  and  servant.  No  wife  and  babies,  owing  to 
the  hardness  of  the  times." 

With  this  instructive  example  of  selective  economy,  I  call  your 
admiring  attention  to  the  forbearingly  practical  character  of  this 
letter,  written  at  Trenton  and  in  the  full  of  the  moon,  and  remain, 
my  dear  Morris,  Yours,  &c.  ^ 


LETTER   VII. 

TRENTOX  FALLS,  August  28,  1848. 

ONE  of  the  most  embarrassing  of  dilemmas,  my  dear  Morris,  in 
addressing  either  talk  or  letter  to  a  man,  is  not  to  know  the 
amounfcof  his  information  on  the  subject  in  hand.  I  am  to  write 
to  you  from  Trenton — a  place  of  romantic  scenery  and  gay  re- 
sort, and  easy  enough  to  gossip  about,  if  that  were  all.  But  it 
is,  besides,  the  spot  where  prostrate  Mother  Earth  has  been  cleft 
open  to  the  spine,  more  neatly  than  anywhere  else,  and  where 
the  deposits  on  the  edges  of  her  ribs  show  what  she  had  to  di- 
gest, for  centuries  before  the  creation  of  man.  Here  I  am,  there- 
fore, this  shirt-sleeve  summer  noon — as  full  of  wonder  and 
impressions  of  beauty  as  my  poor  brain-jug  can  any  way  hold 
without  spilling — but,  query  before  I  pour  out : — how  much 
knowledge  of  the  spot  have  you  drank  already,  and  do  you  want 
the  dregs  at  the  bottom,  or  only  the  bubble  at  the  brim  ?  At 
what  definite  point  of  time  (within  a  century  or  so)  shall  we  take 
up  the  news  of  this  watering-place,  whose  book  of  arrivals,  (legi- 
ble at  this  moment  by  the  geologist,)  extends  back  to,  certainly, 
long  before  the  planting  of  the  forbidden  tree,  and,  possibly,  to  a 
date  anterior  to  the  fall  of  Lucifer  ?  America  (Agassiz  and  other 
15* 


346  LETTER  VII. 


men  of  science  now  agree)  was  stocked  and  planted  long  before 
the  emergence  of  Europe  and  Asia  from  the  bed  of  the  ocean. 
It  was  an  old  continent  when  Eden  first  came  to  light ;  and  if 
Adam's  early  education  had  not  been  neglected,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  made  the  tour  of  the  United  States,  (then  "  the  old 
country,")  and  taken  Trenton  in  his  way.  Now,  my  Morris, 
where  shall  we  strike  in,  to  the  long  line  of  customers  at  this 
pleasant  place  ?  Shall  I  talk  to  you  of  the  trilobites  and  zoo- 
phytes who  came  here  a  quarter  of  an  eternity  ago,  or  of  the 
French  Baron  and  the  son  of  an  English  statesman,  who  arrived 
here  to-day,  August  10,  1848?  Will  you  have  Trenton  shown 
up  in  Adam  and  Eve's  time,  or  in  the  time  of  Baron  de  Trobriand 
and  Mr.  Stanley  ?  Of  this  long  established  theatre  of  Nature, 
shall  I  paragraph  the  "  stock  company"  or  the  "  stars" — the  fos- 
sil remains  of  time  out  of  mind,  or  the  belles  and  beaux  who,  al 
this  particular  moment  of  forever  and  ever,  are  flirting  away  the 
noon  upon  the  portico  ?  If  we  could  "  vote  in"  our  own  fossil 
representatives,  by  the  way — choose  the  specimens  of  our  race,  I 
mean,  who  are  to  be  dug  out  and  admired  in  future  ages — there 
is  a  bride  among  the  company  below,  whose  election  would,  I 
think,  be  unanimous,  and  whose  form,  (if  petrified  in  marble  with- 
out a  flaw  and  brought  to  light  a  thousand  years  hence  as  a 
zoolite  of  the  eighteenth  century,)  would  assuredly  make  those 
unborn  geologists  sigh  not  to  have  lived  in  our  days  of  woman. 
She  is  indeed  a  ch ,  but,  for  further  particulars,  see  post- 
script. 

I  was  here  twenty  years  ago,  but  the  fairest  things  slip  easiest 
out  of  the  memory,  and  I  had  half  forgotten  Trenton.  To  tell 
the  truth,  I  was  a  little  ashamed,  to  compare  the  faded  and  shabby 


TRENTON  FALLS.  347 


picture  of  it,  in  my  mind,  with  the  reality  before  me ;  and,  if  the 
waters  of  the  Falls  had  been,  by  any  likelihood,  the  same  that 
flowed  over  when  I  was  here  before,  I  should  have  looked  them 
in  the  face,  I  think,  with  something  of  the  embarrassment  with 
which  one  meets,  half-rememberingly,  after  years  of  separation, 
the  ladies  one  has  vowed  to  love  forever.  How  is  it  with  you, 
my  dear  friend  ?  Have  you,  as  a  general  thing,  been  constant 
to  waterfalls,  &c.,  &c.,  &c.  ? 

The  peculiarity  of  Trenton  Falls,  I  fancy,  consists  a  good  deal 
in  the  space  in  which  you  are  compelled  to  see  them.  You  walk 
a  few  steps  from  the  hotel,  through  the  wood,  and  come  to  a 
descending  staircase  of  a  hundred  steps,  the  different  bends  of 
which  are  so  overgrown  with  wild  shrubbery,  that  you  cannot 
see  the  ravine  till  you  are  fairly  upon  its  rocky  floor.  Your  path 
hence,  up  to  the  first  fall,  is  along  a  ledge  cut  out  of  the  base  of 
the  cliff  that  overhangs  the  torrent ;  and  when  you  get  to  the  foot  of 
the  descending  sheet,  you  find  yourself  in  very  close  quarters 
with  a  cataract — rocky  walls  all  around  you — and  the  appreciation 
of  power  and  magnitude,  perhaps,  somewhat  heightened  by  the 
confinement  of  the  place — as  a  man  would  have  a  much  more  re- 
alizing sense  of  a  live  lion,  shut  up  with  him  in  a  basement  par- 
lor, than  he  would  of  the  same  object,  seen  from  an  elevated  and 
distant  point  of  view. 

The  usual  walk  (through  this  deep  cave,  open  at  the  top)  is 
about  half  a  mile  in  length,  and  its  almost  subterranean  river,  in 
that  distance,  plunges  over  four  precipices  in  exceedingly  beautiful 
cascades.  On  the  successive  rocky  terraces  between  the  falls,  the 
torrent  takes  every  variety  of  rapids  and  whirlpools,  and,  perhaps, 
in  all  the  scenery  of  the  world,  there  is  no  river  which,  in  the 


348  LETTER  VII. 


same  space,  presents  so  many  of  the  various  shapes  111^  beautic* 
of  running  and  falling  water.  The  Indian  name  o(  the  stream, 
(the  Kanata,  which  means  the  amber  river,)  expresses  one  of  its 
peculiarities,  and,  probably  from  the  depth  of  shade  cast  by  the 
two  dark  and  overhanging  walls  'twixt  which  it  flows,  the  water 
is  everywhere  of  a  peculiarly  rich  lustre  and  color,  and,  in  the 
edges  of  one  or  two  of  the  cascades,  as  yellow  as  gold.  Artists, 
in  drawing  this  river,  fail,  somehow,  in  giving  the  impression  of 
deep-down-itude  which  is  produced  by  the  close  approach  of  the 
two  lofty  walls  of  rock,  capped  by  the  overleaning  woods,  and 
with  the  sky  apparently  resting,  like  a  ceiling,  upon  the  leafy 
architraves.  It  conveys,  somehow,  the  effect  of  a  sw&fer-natural 
river — on  a  different  level,  altogether,  from  our  common  and 
above-ground  water-courses.  If  there  were  truly,  as  the  poets 
say  figuratively,  "  worlds  within  worlds,"  this  would  look  as  if  an 
earthquake  had  cracked  open  the  outer  globe,  and  exposed, 
through  the  yawning  fissure,  one  of  the  rivers  of  the  globe  below 
— the  usual  underground  level  of  "  down  among  the  dead  men," 
being,  as  you  walk  upon  its  banks,  between  you  and  the  daylight. 
Considering  the  amount  of  surprise  and  pleasure  which  one 
feels  in  a  walk  up  the  ravine  at  Trenton,  it  is  remarkable  how  lit- 
tle one  finds  to  say  about  it,  the  day  after.  Is  it  that  mere 
scenery,  without  history,  is  enjoyable  without  being  suggestive  ? 
or,  amid  the  tumult  of  the  rushing  torrent  at  one's  feet,  is  the 
milk  of  thought  too  much  agitated  for  the  cream  to  rise  ?  I  fan- 
cied yesterday,  as  I  rested  on  the  softest  rock  I  could  find  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  ravine,  that  I  should  tumble  out  a  letter  to-day, 
with  the  ideas  pitching  forth  like  drift-logs  over  a  waterfall ;  yet 
my  memory  has  nothing  in  it  to-day  but  the  rocks  and  rapids  it 


TRENTON  FALLS.  349 


took  in — the  talent,  wrapped  in  its  napkin  of  delight,  remaining  in 
unimproved  statu-quo-sity.  One  certainly  gets  the  impression, 
while  the  sight  and  hearing  are  so  overwhelmed,  that  one's  mind  is 
famously  at  work,  and  that  we  shall  hear  from  it  to-morrow ;  but 
it  is  Jean  Paul,  I  think,  who  says  that  "  the  mill  makes  the  most 
noise  when  there  is  no  grist  in  the  hopper."  I  have  a  couple 
more  days  to  stay  here,  however,  and,  meantime,  I  will  leave 
these  first  impressions  in  incubation.  Look,  for  one  more  letter 
from  Trenton,  therefore,  for  which  I  will  borrow  an  hour  or  two 
of  the  morning  of  leaving. 


LETTEE  VIII. 

TRENTON  FALLS,  August  — ,  1848. 

THAT  vry  "  American  swallow/'  which,  the  zoologists  tell  us,- 
"  devoatrs  fifteen  hundred  caterpillars  a  week,  and  performs  every 
action  en  the  wing  except  incubation  and  sleeping,"  should  estab- 
lish a  d*».pot  for  the  sale  of  his  feathers — for,  with  the  quill  of  no 
slower  bird  can  a  man  comfortably  write,  in  the  act  of  mental 
digestion  and  during  bodily  travel.  If  you  find  my  style  jerk-y 
and  abrupt,  and  my  adjoining  chambers  of  thought,  as  they  say 
in  conchology,  without  "  the  connecting  siphuncle"  which  should 
make  the  transition  as  velvet-y  to  the  reader's  foot  as  the  carpet 
from  a  boudoir  to  a  lady's  chamber,  let  the  defects  rather  make 
you  wonder  that  I  wrote  at  all  than  that  I  wrote  no  better.  To 
feel,  and  tell  of  it  while  you  feel,  is,  (besides,)  as  lovers  and 
writers  alike  know,  very  difficult  business  —  notwithstanding 
Shakspeare's  doctrine  that  "  every  time  serves  for  the  matter  that 
is  then  born  in  it."  And  so  for  another  of  those  fatal  too-quick- 
ities,  for  all  manner  of  which,  it  seems  to  me,  life  is  full  of  irresist- 
ible inducement. 

It  is  not  often,  my  dear  Morris,  that  we  have  found  occasion 
to  complain  of  woman's  performance  of  her  part  as  the  sex  orna- 


TRENTON  FALLS.  351 


mental.  In  most  times  and  places,  she  refreshingly  varies  the 
dullness  of  the  picture  of  life,  dressing  for  her  place  as  appropri- 
ately as  do  the  lilies  and  roses,  and  deserving,  like  them,  (of 
course,)  to  toil  not,  neither  should  she  spin.  To  be  ornamental 
is  to  be  useful  enough.  Charmingly  as  women  become  most 
situations  in  which  we  see  them,  however,  they,  by  the  present 
fashion,  dress  most  tamely  for  the  places  where  striking  costume 
is  most  needed.  I  felt  this  quite  sensibly  yesterday.  From  my 
seat  under  a  tree,  where  I  dreamed  away  the  delicious  summer 
forenoon,  I  had  the  range  of  the  ravine ;  and  everybody  who 
passed  through  made  part  of  my  landscape,  for,  at  least,  half  an 
hour  of  their  climbings  and  haltings.  You  know  how  much  any 
romantic  scene  is  heightened  in  its  effect  by  human  figures. 
Every  new  group  changed  and  embellished  the  glorious  combina- 
tion of  rock,  foliage  and  water  below  me,  and  I  studied  their 
dresses  and  attitudes  as  you  would  criticise  them  in  a  picture. 
The  men  with  their  two  sticks  of  legs,  and  angular  hats,  looked 
abominably,  of  course.  I  was  glad  when  they  were  out  of  the  per- 
spective. But  the  ladies  of  each  party,  with  their  flowing  skirts, 
veils  lifted  by  the  wind,  picturesque  bonnets  and  parasols,  were 
charming  outlines  as  heighteners  to  the  effect,  and  would  have 
been  all  that  was  wanted  to  render  it  perfect,  only  that  they 
were  clad  in  the  colors  of  the  rock  behind  them — in  slate-colored 
riding  dresses,  without  a  single  exception,  and  in  bonnets  and  rib- 
bons adapted,  with  the  same  economy,  to  the  dust  of  the  road. 
In  the  course  of  the  morning,  one  lady  came  along,  apparently  an 
invalid,  resting  at  every  spot  where  she  could  find  a  seat,  and,  for 
her  use,  the  gentleman  who  was  with  her  carried  a  crimson  sJiawl, 
flung  over  his  shoulder.  You  would  need  to  bo  an  artist  to 


352  LETTER  VIII. 


understand  how  much  that  one  shawl  embellished  the  scene.  It 
concentrated  the  light  of  the  whole  ravine,  and,  though  there  were 
parties  of  pretty  girls  above  and  below,  and  new  comers  every 
two  or  three  minutes,  I  found  my  eye  fastened  on  this  red  shawl 
and  its  immediate  neighborhood,  during  the  whole  time  of  its 
remaining  within  view.  I  made  as  vigorous  a  vow  as  the  heav- 
enly languor  of  the  atmosphere  would  sustain,  to  address,  through 
the  Home  Journal,  an  appeal  to  the  ladies  of  our  land  of  beauty, 
imploring  them  to  carry,  at  least,  a  scarf  over  the  arm — white, 
red,  or  blue — when  they  mingle  in  the  landscapes  of  our  romantic 
resorts — thus  supplying  all  that  is  wanted  to  such  glorious  pic- 
tures as  Trenton  and  Niagara  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  they  thus, 
artistically  as  well  as  justly,  become  the  luminous  centre  to  which 
the  remainder  of  the  scene  is  entirely  subservient.  Do  you  not 
see,  Morris,  that,  if  a  lady  in  a  blue  travelling-habit  had  chanced 
to  have  passed  up  the  ravine  during  my  look-out  from  this  point 
of  perspective,  Trenton  Falls  would  have  seemed  to  me  to  be 
only  an  enhancement  of  her  figure  and  appearance — secondary 
altogether  to  her  primary  and  concentrating  impression  on  the 
eye.  Ladies  should  avail  themselves  of  such  opportunities,  even 
at  some  more  pains  and  expense ;  for,  of  all  the  chance  obstacles 
to  appreciation  of  female  beauty  or  style,  the  want  of  suitable 
background  and  surroundings  is  the  most  frequent  and  effectual. 
And,  apropos  of  seeing  fine  things  to  advantage,  why  could  not 
you,  my  fine  Brigadier,  give  us  a  tableau  vivant  at  Trenton — or- 
dering some  of  your  companies  of  red-coats  to  campaign  it  for  a 
week  at  the  Falls,  and  let  us  see  how  the  "  war  of  waters"  would 
look,  thundering  down  upon  the  rocks  amid  flags  and  uniforms  ? 
Why,  it  would  be  one  of  the  most  brilliant  shows  possible  to  con- 


TRENTON  FALLS.  853 


trive — a  putting  of  Nature  into  holiday  costume,  as  it  were — and 
I  scarce  know  which  would  more  embellish  the  other,  brigade  or 
cataract.  On  the  platform  above  each  of  the  four  falls  there  is 
room  enough  to  encamp  two  or  three "  companies  in  tents,  and, 
fancy  looking  down  the  gorge  from  the  summit  of  the  cliffs  above, 
and  seeing  these  successive  terraces,  with  waterfall  and  military 
array,  precipices  and  wild  forest,  in  picturesque  and  magnificent 
combination !  The  fact  is,  my  sodger,  that  the  usual  habiliments 
of  mankind  are  made  to  harmonize  with  brick  walls  and  dirty 
streets ;  and,  when  we  come  into  Nature's  gorgeous  palaces  of 
scenery,  looking  the  "  forked  radishes"  that  we  are,  there  is  no 
resisting  the  conviction  that  we  are  either  wofully  out  of  place,  or 
not  dressed  with  suitable  regard  to  the  local  pomp  and  circum- 
stance. Suggest  to  your  hatter,  to  invent,  at  least,  a  som- 
brero, and  advertise  it  as  the  thing  which  etiquette  requires  should 
be  worn  at  Niagara  and  Trenton,  instead  of  a  hat  with  a  petty 
rim.  There  would  be  an  obvious  propriety  in  the  fashion.  Where 
Nature  appears  in  her  waterfall  epaulettes,  armor  of  rocks  and 
dancing  plumes  of  foliage,  surely  there  should  be  some  manner 
of  corresponding  toggery  wherewith  to  wait  upon  her. 

We  have  had  the  full  of  the  moon  and  a  cloudless  sky  for  the 
last  two  or  three  nights,  and  of  course  we  have  walked  the  ravine 
till  the  "small  hours,"  seeing  with  wonder  the  transforming 
effects  of  moonlight  and  its  black  shadows  on  the  falls  and  preci- 
pices. I  have  no  idea  (you  will  be  glad  to  know)  of  trying  to 
reproduce  these  sublimities  on  paper — at  least  not  with  my 
travelling  stock  of  verbs  and  adjectives.  To  "  sandwich  the  moon 
in  a  muffin,"  one  must  have  time  and  a  ladder  of  dictionaries.  But 
one  or  two  effects  struck  me  which,  perhaps,  are  worth  briefly 


854  LETTER  VIII. 


naming,  and  I  will  throw  into  the  lot  a  poetical  figure,  which  you 
may  use  in  your  next  song — giving  credit  to  your  "  distinguished 
fellow- citizen,"  the  Moon,  for  the  original  suggestion. 

The  fourth  fall,  (or  the  one  which  is  flanked  by  the  ruins  of  a 
saw-mill,)  is  perhaps  a  hundred  feet  across ;  and  its  curve  over 
the  upper  rock  and  its  break  upon  the  lower  one,  form  two  paral- 
lel lines,  the  water  everywhere  falling  the  same  distance,  with  the 
evenness  of  an  artificial  cascade.  The  stream  not  being  very  full, 
just  now,  it  came  over,  in  twenty  or  thirty  places,  thicker  than 
elsewhere  ;  and  the  effect,  from  a  distance,  as  the  moonlight  lay 
full  upon  it,  was  that  of  twenty  or  thirty  immovable  marble 
columns,  connected  by  transparent  curtains  of  falling  lace,  and 
with  bases  in  imitation  of  foam.  Now  it  struck  me  that  this  might 
suggest  a  new  and  fanciful  order  of  architecture,  suitable  at  least 
to  the  structure  of  green-houses,  the  glass  roofs  of  which  are 
curved  over  and  slope  to  the  ground  with  very  much  the  contour 
of  a  waterfall.  Please  mention  this  to  Downing,  the  next  time 
you  meet  him,  and  he'll  mention  it,  (for  the  use  of  some  happy, 
extravagant  dog,  who  can  afford  a  whim  or  so,)  in  his  next  book 
on  Rural  Architecture. 

Subterranean  as  this  foaming  river  looks  by  day,  it  looks  like  a 
river  in  cloud-land  by  night.  The  side  of  the  ravine  which  is  in 
shadow,  is  one  undistinguishable  mass  of  black,  with  its  wavy 
upper  edge  in  strong  relief  against  the  sky,  and,  as  the  foaming 
stream  catches  the  light  from  the  opposite  and  moonlit  side,  it  is 
outlined  distinctly  on  its  bed  of  darkness,  and  seems  winding  its 
way  between  hills  and  clouds,  half  black,  half  luminous.  Below, 
where  all  is  deep  shadow  except  the  river,  you  might  fancy  it  a 
silver  mine  laid  open  to  your  view  amid  subterranean  darkness  by 


TRENTON  FALLS.  855 


the  wand  of  an  enchanter,  or,  (if  you  prefer  a  military  trope,  my 
dear  General,)  a  long  white  plume  laid  lengthwise  between  the 
ridges  of  a  cocked  hat. 

And  now — for  the  poetical  similitude  I  promised  you — please 
put  yourself  opposite  the  biggest  cataract  of  all,  the  lowest  one, 
where  the  whole  body  of  the  river  is  forced  into  the  narrowing 
approach  to  a  precipice,  and  pitches  into  the  foamy  gulf  below, 
like  the  overthrow  of  Lucifer  and  his  hosts.  From  one  cause  and 
another,  this  is  the  angriest  downfall  of  waters  possible ;  and  the 
rock,  over  which  it  tumbles,  here  makes  a  curve,  and  comes 
round  with  a  battlemented  projection,  looking  the  cataract  full  in 
the  face.  As  we  stood  gazing  at  this,  last  night,  a  little  after  mid- 
night, the  moon  threw  the  shadow  of  the  rock,  slantwise,  across 
the  face  of  the  fall.  I  found  myself  insensibly  watching  to  see 
whether  the  delicate  outline  of  the  shadow  would  not  vary. 
There  it  lay,  still  as  the  shade  of  a  church-window  across  a  mar- 
ble slab  on  the  wall,  drawing  its  fine  line  over  the  most  frenzied 
tumult  of  the  lashed  and  agonized  waters,  and  dividing  whatever 
leaped  across  it,  foam,  spray  or  driving  mist,  with  invariable 
truthfulness  to  the  rock  that  lay  behind.  Now,  my  song-maker, 
if  you  ever  have  a  great  man  to  make  famous — a  hero  who  un- 
flinchingly represents  a  great  principle  amid  the  raging  opposi- 
tion, hatred  and  malice  of  mankind — there  is  your  similitude ! 
Calm  as  the  shadow  of  a  rock  across  the  foam  of  a  cataract,  would 
be  a  neat  thing  to  "  salt  down"  for  CALHOUN  or  VAN  BUREN — 
(whichever  holds  out  best  or  first  wants  it) — and  it  would  go  off, 
in  one  of  your  speeches,  like  a  Paixhan  gun.  I  tied  a  knot  in  the 
end  of  my  cravat,  standing  at  the  Fall,  to  remember  it  for  you. 


856  LETTER  VIII. 


Baron  de  Trobriand  has  been  here,  for  the  last  day  or  two,  as  1 
mentioned  in  my  last  letter.  I  had  been  reading,  on  the  road,  a 
French  novel  of  which  he  is  the  author,  ("  Les  Gentilshommes 
de  r  Quest,")  and  I  am  amused  to  see  how  he  carries  out,  in  his 
impulsive  and  enthusiastic  way  of  enjoying  scenery,  the  impres- 
sion you  get  of  his  character  from  his  buoyant  and  brilliant  style 
of  writing.  We  have  not  seen  him  at  a  meal  since  he  has  been 
here.  After  one  look  at  the  Falls,  he  came  back  and  made  a 
foray  upon  the  larder,  got  a  tin  kettle  in  which  he  packed  the 
simple  provender  he  might  want,  and  was  off  with  his  portfolio 
to  sketch  and  ramble  out  the  day,  impatient  alike  of  the  restraints 
of  meals  or  companions.  He  returns  at  night  with  his  slight  and 
elegant  features  burnt  with  the  sun,  wet  to  the  knees  with  wading 
the  rapids,  and  quite  overdone  with  fatigue,  and  rejoins  the  gay 
but  more  leisurely  and  luxurious  party  with  which  he  travels. 
Looking  down  from  one  of  the  cliffs  yesterday  aftornoon,  I  saw 
him  hard  at  work,  ankle-deep  in  water,  bringing  pieces  of  rock 
and  building  a  causeway  across  the  shallows  of  the  stream — to 
induce  the  ladies  to  come  to  the  edge  of  the  Falls,  otherwise 
inaccessible.  He  has  made  one  or  two  charming  sketches  of  the 
ravine,  being,  as  you  know,  an  admirable  artist.  There  is  an 
infusion  of  joyousness  and  impulse,  as  well  as  of  genius,  in  the 
noble  blood  of  this  gentleman  who  has  come  to  live  among  us ; 
and,  I  trust,  that,  with  the  increase  of  our  already  large  French 
population,  he  will  think  it  worth  while  to  graft  himself  on  our 
periodical  literature,  and  give  it  an  effervescence  that  it  needs. 
You  remember  his  gay  critiques  of  the  Opera  last  winter. 

I  meant  to  have  described  to  you  the  path  through  the  forest 


TRENTON    FALLS.  35*7 


Along  the  edge  of  the  cliff  overhanging  the  ravine — its  beauty  by 
moonlight,  with  its  fire-fly  lamps  and  locust  hymns — the  lunar 
rainbow  visible  from  one  of  its  eyries — and  other  stuff  for  poetry 
with  which  I  mentally  filled  my  pockets  in  strolling  about ;  but 
my  letter  is  long.  Adieu. 


A    PLAIN   MAN  S   LOVE: 

A   STORY   WITHOUT   INCIDENT, 

WRITTEN   IN   THE   LEISURE   OF   ILLNESS. 


A    PLAIN    MAN'S    LOVE. 


CHAPTER    I. 


THAT  the  truths  arrived  at  by  the  unaccredited  short  load  of 
"  magnetism"  had  better  be  stripped  of  their  technical  phraseol- 
ogy, and  set  down  as  the  gradual  discoveries  of  science  and 
experience,  is  a  policy  upon  which  acts  many  a  sagacious  believer 
in  "  clairvoyance."  Doubtless,  too,  there  is,  here  and  there,  a 
wise  man,  who  •  is  glad  enough  to  pierce,  with  the  eyes  of  an 
incredible  agent,  the  secrets  about  him,  and  let  the  world  give  him 
credit,  by  whatever  name  they  please,  for  the  superior  knowledge 
of  which  he  silently  takes  advantage.  I  should  be  behind  the 
time,  if  I  had  not  sounded,  to  the  utmost  of  my  ability  and  op- 
portunity, the  depth  of  this  new  medium.  I  have  tried  it  on 
grave  things  and  trifles.  If  the  unveiling  which  I  am  about  to 
record  were  of  more  use  to  myself  than  to  others,  perhaps  I 
should  adopt  the  policy  of  which  I  have  just  spoken,  and  give 
the  result,  simply  as  my  own  shrewd  lesson,  learned  in  reading 
the  female  heart.  But  the  truths  I  unfold  will  instruct  the  few 
who  need  and  can  appreciate  them,  while  the  whole  subject  is  not 
of  general  importance  enough  to  bring  down  cavillers  upon  the 
credibility  of  their  source.  I  thus  get  rid  of  a  very  detestable, 
though  sometimes  necessary,  evil,  ("  qui  nescit  dissimulare  nescit 
vivere"  says  the  Latin  sage,)  that  of  shining  by  any  light  that  is 
not  absolutely  my  own. 
VOL.  i.  16 


362  LEISURE    STORY. 


I  am  a  very  plain  man  in  my  personal  appearance — so  plain 
that  a  common  observer,  if  informed  that  there  was  a  woman 
who  had  a  fancy  for  my  peculiar  type,  would  wonder  that  I  was 
not  thankfully  put  to  rest,  for  Me,  as  a  seeker  after  love — a  sec- 
ond miracle  of  the  kind  being  a  very  slender  probability.  It  is 
not  in  beauty  that  the  taste  for  beauty  alone  resides,  however.  In 
early  youth  my  soul,  nke  the  mirror  of  Cydippe,  retained,  with 
enamored  fidelity,  the  image  of  female  loveliness  copied  in  the 
clear  truth  of  its  appreciation ;  and  the  passion  for  it  had  become, 
insensibly,  the  thirst  of  my  life,  before  I  thought  of  it  as  more 
than  an  intoxicating  study.  To  be  beloved — myself  beloved — by 
a  creature  made  in  one  of  the  diviner  moulds  of  woman,  was, 
however,  a  dream  that  shaped  itself  into  waking  distinctness  at 
last;  and,  from  that  hour,  I  took  up  the  clogging  weight  of  personal 
disadvantages,  to  which  I  had  hitherto  unconsciously  been  chain- 
ed, and  bore  it  heavily  in  the  race  which  the  well-favored  ran  as 
eagerly  as  I. 

I  am  not  to  recount,  here,  the  varied  experiences  of  my  search, 
the  world  over,  after  beauty  and  its  smile.  It  is  a  search  on 
which  all  travellers  are  more  than  half  bent,  let  them  name  as 
they  please  their  professed  errand  in  far  countries.  The  coldest 
scholar  in  art  will  better  remember  a  living  face,  of  a  new  cast  of 
expression,  met  in  the  gallery  of  Florence,  than  the  best  work  of 
Michael  Angelo,  whose  genius  he  has  crossed  an  ocean  to  study ; 
and  a  fair  shoulder  crowded  against  the  musical  pilgrim,  in  the 
Capella  Sistina,  will  be  taken  surer  into  his  soul's  inner  memory, 
than  the  best  outdoing  of  "  the  sky-lark  taken  up  into  heaven," 
by  the  ravishing  reach  of  the  Miserere.  Is  it  not  true  ? 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE 


There  can  hardly  be,  now,  I  think,  a  style  of  female  beauty  of 
which  I  have  not  appreciated  the  meaning  and  comparative  en- 
chantment, nor  a  degree  of  that  sometimes  more  effective  thing 
than  beauty  itself — its  expression  breathing  through  features 
otherwise  unlovely — that  I  have  not  approached  near  enough  to 
weigh  and  store  truthfully  in  remembrance.  The  taste  forever 
refines,  in  the  study  of  woman.  We  return  to  what,  with  imma- 
ture eye,  we  at  first  rejected ;  we  intensify,  immeasurably,  our 
worship  of  the  few  who  wear  on  their  foreheads  the  star  of  su- 
preme loveliness,  confessed  pure  and  perfect  by  all  beholders 
alike ;  we  detect  it  under  surfaces  which  become  transparent  only 
with  tenderness  or  enthusiasm ;  we  separate  the  work  of  Nature's 
material  chisel,  from  the  resistless  and  warm  expansion  of  the  soul 
swelling  its  proportion  to  fill  out  the  shape  it  is  to  tenant  hereaf- 
ter. Led  by  the  purest  study  of  true  beauty,  the  eager  mind 
passes  on,  from  the  shrine  where  it  lingered,  to  the  next  of  whose 
greater  brightness  it  becomes  aware :  and  this  is  the  secret  of  one 
kind  of  "  inconstancy  in  love,"  which  should  be  named  apart 
from  the  variableness  of  those  seekers  of  novelty,  who,  from  un- 
conscious self-contempt,  value  nothing  they  have  had  the  power 
to  win. 

An  unsuspected  student  of  beauty,  I  passed  years  of  loiterings 
in  the  living  galleries  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and,  like  self-punish- 
ing misers  in  all  kinds  of  amassings,  stored  up  boundlessly  more 
than,  with  the  best  trained  senses,  I  could  have  found  the  life  to 
enjoy.  Of  course,  I  had  a  first  advantage,  of  dangerous  facility, 
in  my  unhappy  plainness  of  person — the  alarm-guard,  that  sur- 
rounds every  beautiful  woman  in  every  country  of  the  world, 
letting  sleep,  at  my  approach,  the  cautionary  reserve  which  pre- 


364  LEISURE  STORY. 


sents  bayonet  so  promptly  to  the  good-looking.  Even  with  my 
worship  avowed,  and  the  manifestation  of  grateful  regard  which 
a  woman  of  fine  quality  always  returns  for  elevated  and  unexact- 
ing  admiration,  I  was  still  left  with  such  privilege  of  access  as  is 
granted  to  the  family-gossip,  or  to  an  innocuous  uncle  ;  and  it  is 
of  such  a  passion,  rashly  nurtured  under  this  protection  of  an  im- 
probability, that  I  propose  to  tell  the  inner  story. 


CHAPTER   II. 

I  was  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca  during  a  season  made  gay  by  the 
presence  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  agreeable  and  accessible  court 
of  Tuscany.  The  material  for  my  untiring  study  was  in  abund- 
ance, yet  it  was  all  of  the  worldly  character  which  the  attractions 
of  the  place  would  naturally  draw  together,  and  my  homage  had 
but  a  choice  between  differences  of  display  in  the  one  pursuit  of 
admiration.  In  my  walks  through  the  romantic  mountain-paths 
of  the  neighborhood,  and  along  the  banks  of  the  deep-down  river 
that  threads  the  ravine  above  the  village,  I  had  often  met,  mean- 
time, a  lady  accompanied  by  a  well-bred  and  scholar-like  look- 
ing man ;  and,  though  she  invariably  dropped  her  veil  at  my 
approach,  her  admirable  movement,  as  she  walked,  or  stooped  to 
pick  a  flower,  betrayed  that  conscious  possession  of  beauty  and 
habitual  confidence  in  her  own  grace  and  elegance,  which  assured 
me  of  attractions  worth  taking  trouble  to  know.  By  one  of  those 
"unavoidable  accidents"  which  any  respectable  guardian  angel 
will  contrive,  to  oblige  one,  I  was  a  visitor  to  the  gentleman  and 
lady — father  and  daughter — soon  after  my  curiosity  had  framed 
the  desire ;  and  in  her  I  found  a  marvel  of  beauty,  from  which  I 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE.  365 


looked  in  vain  for  my  usual  escape — that  of  placing  the  ladder  of 
my  heart  against  a  loftier  and  fairer. 

Mr.  Wangrave  was  one  of  those  English  gentlemen,  who  would 
not  exchange  the  name  of  an  ancient  and  immemorially  wealthy 
family,  for  any  title  that  their  country  could  give  them,  and  he 
used  this  shield  of  modest  honor  simply  to  protect  himself  in  the 
enjoyments  of  habits,  freed,  as  far  as  refinement  and  culture 
could  do  it,  from  the  burthens  and  intrusions  of  life  above  and 
below  him.  He  was  ceaselessly  educating  himself — like  a  man 
whose  whole  life  was  only  too  brief  an  apprenticeship  to  a  higher 
existence — and,  with  an  invalid,  but  intellectual  and  lovely  wife, 
and  a  daughter  who  seemed  unconscious  that  she  could  love,  and 
who  kept  gay  pace  with  her  youthful-hearted  father  in  his  lighter 
branches  of  knowledge,  his  family  sufficed  to  itself,  and  had  de- 
termined so  to  continue  while  abroad.  The  society  of  no  Conti- 
nental watering-place  has  a  very  good  name,  and  they  were  there 
for  climate  and  seclusion.  With  two  ladies,  who  seemed  to "  oc- 
cupy the  places  and  estimation  of  friends,  (but  who  were  proba- 
bly the  paid  nurse  and  companion  to  the  invalid,)  and  a  kind- 
hearted  old  secretary  to  Mr.  Wangrave,  whose  duties  consisted  in 
being  as  happy  as  he  possibly  could  be,  their  circle  was  large 
enough,  and  it  contained  elements  enough — except  only,  perhaps, 
the  reveille  that  was  wanting  for  the  apparently  slumbering  heart 
of  Stephania. 

A  month  after  my  first  call  upon  the  Wangraves,  I  joined  them 
on  their  journey  to  Vallambrosa,  where  they  proposed  to  take 
refuge  from  the  sultry  coming  of  the  Italian  autumn.  My  hap- 
piness would  not  have  been  arranged  after  the  manner  of  this 
world's  happiness,  if  I  had  been  the  only  addition  tc  their  party 


366  LEISURE  STORY. 


up  the  mountain.  They  had  received,  with  open  arms,  a  few  days 
before  leaving  Lucca,  a  young  man  from  the  neighborhood  of 
their  own  home,  and  who,  I  saw  with  half  a  glance,  was  the  very 
eidolon  and  type  of  what  Mr.  Wangrave  would  desire  as  a  fitting 
match  for  his  daughter.  From  the  allusions  to  him  that  had 
preceded  his  coming,  I  had  learned  that  he  was  the  heir  to  a 
brilliant  fortune,  and  was  coming  to  his  old  friends  to  be  congrat- 
ulated on  his  appointment  to  a  captaincy  in  the  Queen's  Guards 
— as  pretty  a  case  of  an  "  irresistible"  as  could  well  have  been 
compounded  for  expectation.  And  when  he  came — the  absolute 
model  of  a  youth  of  noble  beauty — all  frankness,  good  manners, 
joyousness,  and  confidence — I  summoned  courage  to  look  alter- 
nately at  Stephania  and  him,  and  the  hope,  the  daring  hope  that 
I  had  never  yet  named  to  myself,  but  which  was  already  master 
of  my  heart  and  its  every  pulse  and  capability,  dropped  pros- 
trate and  lifeless  in  my  bosom.  If  he  did  but  offer  her  the  life- 
minute  of  love,  of  which  I  would  give  her,  it  seemed  to  me,  for 
the  same  price,  an  eternity  of  countless  existences — if  he  should 
but  give  her  a  careless  word,  where  I  could  wring  a  passionate 
utterance  out  of  the  aching  blood  of  my  very  heart — she  must 
needs  be  his.  She  would  be  a  star,  else,  that  would  resign  an 
orbit  in  the  fair  s'ky,  to  illumine  a  dim  cave  ;  a  flower  that  would 
rather  bloom  on  a  bleak  moor  than  in  the  garden  of  a  king — for, 
with  such  crushing  comparisons  did  I  irresistibly  see  myself,  as  I 
remembered  my  own  shape  and  features,  and  my  far  humbler  for- 
tunes than  his,  standing  in  her  presence  beside  him. 

Oh !  how  everything  contributed  to  enhance  the  beauty  of  that 
young  man  !  How  the  mellow  and  harmonizing  tenderness  of  the 
light  of  the  Italian  sky  gave  sentiment  to  his  oval  cheek,  depth  to 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE.  367 


his  gray-blue  eye,  meaning  to  their  overfolding  and  thick-fringed 
.ashes  !  Whatever  he  said  with  his  finely-cut  lips,  was  looked  into 
twenty  times  its  meaning  by  the  beauty  of  their  motion  in  that 
languid  atmosphere — an  atmosphere  seemed  only  breathed  for  his 
embellishment  and  Stephanie's.  Every  posture  he  took  seemed 
a  happy  and  rare  accident,  which  a  painter  should  have  been 
there  to  see.  The  sunsets,  the  moonlight,  the  chance  background 
and  foreground,  of  vines  and  rocks — everything  seemed  in  con- 
spiracy to  heighten  his  effect,  and  make  of  him  a  faultless  picture 
of  a  lover. 

"  Everything,"  did  I  say  ?  Yes,  even  myself — for  my  uncomely 
face  and  form  were  such  a  foil  to  his  beauty  as  a  skilful  artist 
would  have  introduced  to  heighten  it  when  all  other  art  was  ex- 
hausted, and  every  one  saw  it  except  Stephania  ;  ancl  little  they 
knew  how,  with  perceptions  far  quicker  than  theirs,  I  felt  then* 
recognition  of  this,  in  the  degree  of  softer  kindness  in  which  they 
unconsciously  spoke  to  me.  They  pitied  me,  and  without  recog- 
nizing their  own  thought — for  it  was  a  striking  instance  of  the 
difference  in  the  gifts  of  Nature — one  man  looking  scarce  possible 
to  love,  and  beside  him,  another,  of  the  same  age,  to  whose  mere 
first-seen  beauty,  without  a  word  from  his  lips,  any  heart  would 
seem  unnatural  not  to  leap  in  passionate  surrender. 

We  were  the  best  of  sudden  friends,  Palgray  and  I.  He,  like 
the  rest,  walked  only  the  outer  vestibule  of  the  sympathies  view- 
lessly  deepening  and  extending,  hour  by  hour,  in  that  frank  and 
joyous  circle.  The  interlinkings  of  soul,  which  need  no  language, 
and  which  go  on,  whether  we  will  or  no,  while  we  talk  with, 
friends,  are  so  strangely  unthought  of,  by  the  careless  and  happy ! 
He  saw  in  me  n  3  counter- worker  to  his  influence.  I  was  to  him 


368  LEISURE  STORY. 


but  a  well-bred  and  extremely  plain  man,  who  tranquilly  submit- 
ted to  forego  all  the  first  prizes  of  life,  content  if  I  could  con- 
tribute to  society  in  its  unexcited  voids,  and  receive  in  return  only 
the  freedom  of  its  outer  intercourse,  and  its  friendly  esteem.  But, 
oh  !  it  was  not  in  the  same  world  that  he  and  I  knew  Stephania. 
He  approached  her  from  the  world  in  whose  most  valued  excel- 
lencies, beauty  and  wealth,  he  was  pre-eminently  gifted — I,  from 
the  viewless  world,  in  which  I  had,  at  least,  more  skill  and 
knowledge.  In  the  month  that  I  had  known  her  before  he  came, 
I  had  sedulously  addressed  myself  to  a  character  within  her,  of 
which  Palgray  had  not  even  a  conjecture  ;  and  there  was  but  one 
danger  of  his  encroachment  on  the  ground  I  had  gained — her  im- 
agination might  supply,  in  him,  the  noble  temple  of  soul-worship, 
which  was  still  unbuilt,  and  which  would  never  be  builded,  except 
by  pangs  such  as  he  was  little  likely  to  feel  in  the  undeepening 
channel  of  happiness.  He  did  not  notice  that  /  never  spoke  to 
her  in  the  same  key  of  voice  to  which  the  conversation  of  others 
was  attuned.  He  saw  not  that,  while  she  turned  to  him  with  a 
smile  as  a  preparation  to  listen,  she  heard  my  voice  as  if  her 
attention  had  been  arrested  by  distant  music — with  no  change  in 
her  features  except  a  look  more  earnest.  She  would  have  called 
him  to  look  with  her  at  a  glowing  sunset,  or  to  point  out  a  new 
comer  in  the  road  from  the  village ;  but,  if  the  moon  had  gone 
suddenly  into  a  cloud  and  saddened  the  face  of  the  landscape,  or 
if  the  wind  had  sounded  mournfully  through  the  trees,  as  she 
looked  out  upon  the  night,  she  would  have  spoken  cf  that,  first  tc 
me. 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE.  369 


CHAPTER   III. 


I  am  flying  over  the  track  of  what  was  to  me  a  torrent — out- 
lining its  course  by  alighting  upon,  here  and  there,  a  point  wher* 
it  turned  or  lingered. 

The  reader  has  been  to  Vallambrosa — if  not  once  as  a  pilgrim, 
at  least  often  with  writers  of  travels  in  Italy.  The  usages  of  the 
convent  are  familiar  to  all  memories — their  lodging  of  the  gentle- 
men of  a  party  in  cells  of  their  own  monastic  privilege,  and  giv- 
ing, to  the  ladies,  less  sacred  hospitalities,  in  a  secular  building  of 
meaner  and  unconsecrated  architecture.  (So,  oh,  mortifying 
brotherhood,  you  shut  off  your  only  chance  of  entertaining  angels 
unaware !) 

Not  permitted  to  eat  with  the  ladies  while  on  the  holy  moun- 
tain, Mr.  Wangrave  and  his  secretary,  and  Palgray  and  I,  fed  at 
the  table  with  the  aristocratic  monks — (for  they  are  the  aristo- 
crats of  European  holiness,  these  monks  of  Vallambrosa.)  It  was 
somewhat  a  relief  to  me  to  be  separated  with  my  rival  from  the 
party  in  the  feminine  refectory,  even  for  the  short  space  of  a 
meal-time ;  for  the  all -day  suffering  of  presence  with  an  uncon- 
scious trampler  on  my  heart-strings,  and  in  circumstances  where 
all  the  triumphs  were  his  own,  were  more  than  my  intangible 
hold  upon  hope  could  well  enable  me  to  bear.  I  was  happiest, 
therefore,  when  I  was  out  of  the  presence  of  her,  to  be  near 
whom  was  all  for  which  my  life  was  worth  having ;  and  when 
we  sat  down  at  the  long  and  bare  table,  with  the  thoughtful  and 
ashen-cowled  company,  sad  as  I  was,  it  was  an  opiate  sadness — 
a  suspension  from  self-mastery,  under  torture  which  others  took 
to  be  pleasure. 

16* 


370  LEISURE  STORY. 


The  temperature  of  the  mountain-air  was  just  such  as  to  invite 
us  to  never  enter  doors  except  to  eat  and  sleep  ;  and,  breakfast- 
ing at  convent-hours,  we  passed  the  long  day  in  rambling  up  the 
ravines  and  through  the  sombre  forests,  drawing,  botanizing,  and 
conversing  in  group  around  some  spot  of  exquisite  natural  beauty 
and  all  of  the  party,  myself  excepted,  supposing  it  to  be  the 
undissenting,  common  desire  to  contrive  opportunity  for  the  love- 
making  of  Palgray  and  Stephania.  And,  bitter  though  it  was,  in 
each  particular  instance,  to  accept  a  hint  from  one  and  another, 
and  stroll  off,  leaving  the  confessed  lovers  alone,  by  some  musical 
waterfall,  or  in  the  secluded  and  twilight  dimness  of  some  curve 
in  an  overhanging  ravine — places  where  only  to  breathe  is  to  love 
— I  still  felt  an  instinctive  prompting  to  rather  anticipate  than 
wait  for  these  reminders,  she  alone  knowing  what  it  cost  me  to 
be  without  her  in  that  delicious  wilderness ;  and  Palgray,  as  well 
as  I  could  judge,  having  a  mind  out  of  harmony  with  both  the 
wilderness  and  her. 

He  loved  her — loved  her  as  well  as  most  women  need  to  be, 
or  know  that  they  can  be,  loved.  But  he  was  too  happy,  too 
prosperous,  too  universally  beloved,  to  love  well.  He  was  a  man, 
with  all  his  beauty,  more  likely  to  be  fascinating  to  his  own  sex 
than  to  hers — for  the  women  who  love  best,  do  not  love  in  the 
character  they  live  in ;  and  his  out-of-doors  heart,  whose  joyful- 
ness  was  so  contagious,  and  whose  bold  impulses  were  so  manly 
and  open,  contented  itself  with  gay  homage,  and  left,  unplummeted, 
the  sweetest  as  well  as  deeepest  wells  of  the  thoughtful  tender- 
ness of  woman. 

To  most  observers,  Stephania  Wangrave  would  have  seemed 
only  born  to  be  gay — the  mere  habit  of  being  happy  having 


A  PLAIN   MAN  S   LOVE.  871 


made  its  life-long  imprint  upon  her  expression  of  countenance, 
and  all  of  her  nature,  that  would  be  legible  to  a  superficial 
reader,  being  brought  out  by  the  warm  translucence  of  her  smiles. 
But,  while  I  had  seen  this,  in  the  first  hour  of  my  study  of  her,  I 
was  too  advanced  in  my  knowledge  (of  such  works  of  nature  as 
encroach  on  the  models  of  heaven)  not  to  know  this  to  be  a  light 

% 

veil  over  a  picture  of  melancholy  meaning.  Sadness  was  the 
tone  of  her  mind's  inner  coloring.  Tears  were  the  subterranean 
river  upon  which  her  soul's  bark  floated  with  the  most  loved 
freight  of  her  thought's  accumulation — the  sunny  waters  of  joy, 
where  alone  she  was  thought  to  voyage,  being  the  tide  on  which 
her  heart  embarked  no  venture,  and  which  seemed  to  her  triflingly 
garish,  and  even  profaning  to  the  hallowed  delicacy  of  the  inner 
nature. 

It  was  so  strange  to  me  that  Palgray  did  not  see  this  through 
every  lineament  of  her  marvellous  beauty !  There  was  a  glow 
under  her  skin,  but  no  color — an  effect  of  paleness,  fair  as  the 
lotus-leaf,  but  warmer  and  brighter,  and  which  came  through  the 
alabaster  fineness  of  the  grain,  like  something  the  eye  cannot  define, 
but  which  we  know,  by  some  spirit-perception,  to  be  the  effluence 
of  purer  existence — the  breathing  through,  as  it  were,  of  the  lumi- 
nous tenanting  of  an  angel.  To  this  glowing  paleness,  with 
golden  hair,  I  never  had  seen  united  any  but  a  disposition  of  pre- 
dominant melancholy ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  dull  indeed,  otherwise 
to  read  it.  But  there  were  other  betrayals  of  the  same  inner  na- 
ture of  Stephania.  Her  lips,  cut  with  the  fine  tracery  of  the  pen- 
cilling upon  a  tulip  cup,  were  of  a  slender  and  delicate  fullness, 
expressive  of  a  mind  which  took — (of  the  senses) — only  so  much 
life  as  would  hold  down  the  spirit  during  its  probation ;  and  when 


372  LEISURE  STORY. 


this  spiritual  mouth  was  at  i  ast,  no  painter  has  ever  drawn  lips 
on  which  lay  more  of  the  unutterable  pensiveness  of  beauty  which 
we  dream  to  have  been  Mary's  in  the  childhood  of  Jesus.  A  tear 
in  the  heart  was  the  instinctive  answer  to  Stephania's  every  look, 
when  she  did  not  smile ;  and  her  large,  soft,  slowly-lifting  eyes, 
were,  to  any  elevated  perception,  it  seemed  to  me,  most  eloquent 
of  tenderness  as  tearful  as  it  was  unfathomable  and  ano-elic. 

O 

I  shall  have  failed,  however,  in  portraying,  truly,  the  being  of 
whom  I  am  thus  privileged  to  hold  the  likeness  in  my  memory,  if 
the  reader  fancies  her  to  have  nurtured  her  pensive  disposition  at 
the  expense  of  a  just  value  for  real  life,  or  a  full  developement  of 
womanly  feelings.  It  was  a  peculiarity  of  her  beauty,  to  my  eye, 
that,  with  all  her  earnest  leaning  toward  a  thoughtful  existence, 
there  did  not  seem  to  be  one  vein  beneath  her  pearly  skin,  not 
one  wavy  line  in  her  faultless  person,  that  did  not  lend  its  pro- 
portionate consciousness  to  her  breathing  sense  of  life.  Her  bust 
was  of  the  slightest  fullness  which  the  sculptor  would  choose  for 
the  embodying  of  his  ideal  of  the  best  blending  of  modesty  with 
complete  beauty ;  and  her  throat  and  arms — oh,  with  what  an 
inexpressible  pathos  of  loveliness,  so  to  speak,  was  moulded,  un- 
der an  infantine  dewiness  of  surface,  their  delicate  undulations ! 
No  one  could  be  in  her  presence  without  acknowledging  the  per- 
fection of  her  form  as  a  woman,  and  rendering  the  passionate  yet 
subdued  homage  which  the  purest  beauty  fulfils  its  human  errand 
by  inspiring ;  but,  while  Palgray  made  the  halo  which  surrounded 
her  outward  beauty  the  whole  orbit  of  his  appreciation,  and  made 
of  it,  too,  the  measure  of  the  circle  of  topics  he  choose  to  talk 
upon,  there  was  still  another  and  far  wider  ring  of  light  about 
her,  which  he  lived  in  too  dazzling  a  gayety  of  his  own  to  see — 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE  378 


a  halo  of  a  mind  more  beautiful  than  the  body  which  shut  it  in ; 
and — in  this  intellectual  orbit  of  guidance  to  interchange  of  mind, 
with  manifold  deeper  and  higher  reach  than  Palgray's,  upon 
whatever  topic  chanced  to  occur — revolved  I,  around  her  who  was 
the  loveliest  and  most  gifted  of  all  the  human  beings  I  had  been 
privileged  to  meet. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

The  month  was  expiring  at  Vallambrosa,  but  I  had  not  min- 
gled, for  that  length  of  time,  with  a  fraternity  of  thoughtful  men, 
without  recognition  of  some  of  that  working  of  spontaneous  and 
elective  magnetism  to  which  I  have  alluded  in  a  previous  part  of 
this  story.  Opposite  me,  at  the  table  of  the  convent  refectory, 
had  sat  a  taciturn  monk,  whose  influence  I  felt  from  the  first  day 
— a  stronger  consciousness  of  his  presence,  that  is  to  say,  than 
of  any  one  of  the  other  monks — though  he  did  not  seem  particu- 
larly to  observe  me,  and,  till  recently,  had  scarce  spoken  to  me  at 
all.  He  was  a  man  of  perhaps  fifty  years  of  age,  with  the  coun- 
tenance of  one  who  had  suffered  and  gained  a  victory  of  contem- 
plation— a  look  as  if  no  suffering  could  be  new  to  him,  and  before 
whom  no  riddle  of  human  vicissitudes  could  stay  unread ;  but 
over  all  this  penetration  and  sagacity  was  diffused  a  cast  of  genial 
philanthropy  and  good-fellowship,  which  told  of  his  forgiveness  of 
the  world  for  what  he  had  suffered  in  it.  With  a  curiosity  more 
at  leisure,  I  should  have  sought  him  out,  and  joined  him  in  his 
walks,  to  know  more  of  him  ;  but,  spiritually  acquainted  though  I 
felt  we  ha<?  become,  I  was  far  too  tusy  with  head  and  heart  foi 


874  LEISURE  STORY. 


any  intercourse,  except  it  had  a  bearing  on  the  struggle  for  love 
that  I  was,  to  all  appearance,  so  hopelessly  making. 

Preparations  were  beginning  for  departure,  and,  with  the  mor- 
row, or  the  day  after,  I  was  to  take  my  way  to  Venice — my 
friends  bound  to  Switzerland  and  England,  and  propriety  not 
permitting  me  to  seek  another  move  in  their  company.  The  eve- 
ning on  which  this  was  made  clear  to  me,  was  one  of  those  con- 
tinuations of  day  into  night,  made  by  the  brightness  of  a  full 
Italian  moon;  and  Palgray,  whose  face,  troubled  for  the  first 
time,  betrayed  to  me  that  he  was  at  a  crisis  of  his  fate  with  Ste- 
phania,  evidently  looked  forward  to  this  glowing  night  as  the 
favorable  atmosphere  in  which  he  might  urge  his  suit,  with  Nature 
pleading  in  his  behalf.  The  reluctance  and  evident  irresolution 
of  his  daughter  puzzled  Mr.  Wangrave — for  he  had  no  doubt 
that  she  loved  Palgray,  and  his  education  of  her  head  and  heart 
gave  him  no  clue  to  any  principle  of  coquettishness,  or  willing- 
ness to  give  pain,  for  the  pleasure  of  an  exercise  of  power.  Her 
mother,  and  all  the  members  of  the  party,  were  aware  of  the 
mystery  that  hung  over  the  suit  of  the  young  guardsman,  but 
they  were  all  alike  discreet,  while  distressed,  and  confined  their 
interference  to  the  removal  of  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  lovers' 
being  together,  and  the  avoidance  of  any  topics  gay  enough  to 
change  the  key  of  her  spirits  from  the  natural  softness  of  the 
evening. 

Vespers  were  over,  and  the  sad-colored  figures  of  the  monks 
were  gliding  indolently  here  and  there,  and  Stephania,  with  Pal- 
gray beside  her,  stood  a  little  apart  from  the  group  at  the  door 
of  the  secular  refectory,  looking  off  at  the  fading  purple  of  the 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE.  376 


sunset.  I  could  not  join  her  without  crossing  rudely  the  obvious 
wishes  of  every  person  present ;  yet,  for  the  last  two  days,  I  had 
scarce  found  the  opportunity  to  exchange  a  word  with  her,  and 
my  emotion,  now,  was  scarce  controllable.  The  happier  lover 
beside  her,  with  his  features  heightened  in  expression  (as  I 
thought  they  never  could  be)  by  his  embarrassment  in  wooing, 
was  evidently  and  irresistibly  the  object  of  her  momentary  admi- 
ration. He  offered  her  his  arm,  and  made  a  movement  toward 
the  path  off  into  the  forest.  There  was  an  imploring  deference 
infinitely  becoming  in  his  manner,  and  see  it  she  must,  with  pride 
and  pleasure.  She  hesitated — gave  a  look  to  where  I  stood, 
which  explained  to  me,  better  than  a  world  of  language,  that  she 
had  wished,  at  least,  to  speak  to  me  on  this  last  evening — and, 
before  the  dimness  over  my  eyes  had  passed  away,  they  were 
gone.  Oh !  pitying  Heaven  !  give  me  never  again,  while  wrapt 
in  mortal  weakness,  so  harsh  a  pang  to  suffer. 


CHAPTER   v. 


The  convent-bell  struck  midnight,  and  there  was  a  footfall  in 
the  cloister.  I  was  startled,  by  it,  out  of  an  entire  forgetfulness 
of  all  around  me,  for  I  was  lying  on  my  bed  in  the  monastery 
cell,  with  my  hands  clasped  over  my  eyes,  as  I  had  thrown  my- 
self down  on  coming  in;  and,  with  a  strange  contrariety,  my 
mind,  broken  rudely  from  its  hope,  had  flown  to  my  far-away 
home,  oblivious  of  the  benumbed  links  that  lay  between.  A 
knock  at  my  door  completed  the  return  to  my  despair,  for,  with  a 
look  at  the  walls  of  my  little  chamber,  in  the  bright  beam  of 
moonlight  that  streamed  in  at  the  narrow  window,  I  was,  by  recog- 


376  LEISURE  STORY. 


nition,  again  at  Vallambrosa,  and  Stephania,  witli  an  accepted 
lover's  voice  in  her  ear,  was  again  near  me,  her  moistened  eyes 
steeped,  with  Palgray's,  in  the  same  beam  of  the  all- visiting  and 
unbetraying  moon. 

Father  Ludovic  entered.  The  gentle  tone  of  his  benedicite,  told 
me  that  he  had  come  on  an  errand  of  sympathy.  There  was 
little  need  of  preliminary  between  two  who  read  the  inner  coun- 
tenance as  habitually  as  did  both  of  us ;  and,  as  briefly  as  the  knowl- 
edge and  present  feelings  of  each  could  be  re-expressed  in  words, 
we  confirmed  the  spirit-mingling  that  had  brought  him  there,  and 
were  presently  as  one.  He  had  read  truly  the  drama  of  love, 
enacting  in  the  party  of  visitors  to  his  convent ;  but  his  judgment 

of  the  possible  termination  of  it  was  different  from  mine. 

******* 

Palgray's  dormitory  was  at  the  extremity  of  the  cloister,  and 
we  presently  heard  him  pass. 

"  She  is  alone,  now,"  said  Father  Ludovic  ;  "  I  will  send  you 
to  her." 

My  mind  had  strained  to  Stephania's  presence  with  the  first 
footsteps  that  told  me  of  their  separation ;  and,  it  needed  but  a 
wave  of  his  hand  to  unlink  the  spirit-wings  from  my  weary  frame. 
I  was  present  with  her. 

I  struggled  for  a  moment,  but  in  vain,  to  see  her  face.  Its 
expression  was  as  visible  as  my  hand  in  the  sun,  but  no  feature. 
The  mind  I  had  read  was  close  to  me,  in  a  presence  of  conscious- 
ness ;  and,  in  points,  here  and  there,  brighter,  bolder,  and  further- 
reaching  than  I  had  altogether  believed.  She  was  rnutterably 
pure — a  spirit  without  a  spot — and  I  remained  near  her,  with  a 
feeling  as  if  my  forehead  were  pressed  down  to  the  palms  of  my 


A  PLAIN  MAN'S  LOVE.  377 


hands,  in  homage  mixed  with  sorrow — for  I  should  have  more 
recognized  this  in  my  waking  study  of  her  nature. 

A  moment  more — a  trembling  effort,  as  if  to  read  what  were 
written  to  record  my  companionship  for  eternity — and  a  vague 
image  of  myself  came  out  in  shadow — clearer  now,  and  still  clearer, 
enlarging  to  the  fullness  of  her  mind.  She  thought  wholly  and 
only  of  that  image  I  then  saw ;  yet  with  a  faint  coloring  playing 
to  and  from  it,  as  influences  came  in  from  the  outer  world.  Her 
eyes  were  turned  in  upon  it  in  lost  contemplation.  But  suddenly 
a  new  thought  broke  upon  me.  I  saw  my  image,  but  it  was  not 
I,  as  I  looked  to  myself.  The  type  of  my  countenance  was 
there ;  but,  oh !  transformed  to  an  ideal,  such  as  I  now,  for  the 
first  time,  saw  possible — ennobled  in  every  defective  line — puri- 
fied of  .its  taint  from  worldliness — inspired  with  high  aspirations 
— cleared  of  what  it  had  become  cankered  with,  in  its  transmis- 
sion through  countless  generations  since  first  sent  into  the  world, 
and  restored  to  a  likeness  of  the  angel  of  whose  illuminated  linea- 
ments it  was  first  a  copy.  So  thought  Stephania  of  me.  Thus 
did  she  believe  I  truly  was.  Oh  !  blessed,  and  yet  humiliating, 
trust  of  woman !  Oh !  comparison  of  true  and  ideal,  at  which 
spirits  must  look,  out  of  heaven,  and  of  which  they  must  long, 

with  aching  pity,  to  make  us  thus  rebukingly  aware  ! 

******* 

I  felt  myself  withdrawing  from  Stephania's  presence.  There 
were  tears  between  us,  which  I  could  not  see.  I  strove  to  remain, 
but  a  stronger  power  than  my  will  was  at  work  within  me.  I  felt 
my  heart  swell  with  a  gasp,  as  if  death  were  bearing  out  of  it  the 
principle  of  life ;  and  my  head  dropped  on  the  pillow  of  my  bed. 

"  Good  night,  my  son,"  said  the  low  voice  of  Father  Ludovic  ; 


378  LEISURE  STORY. 


"  I  have  willed  that  you  should  remember  what  you  have  seen. 
3e  worthy  of  her  love,  for  there  are  few  like  her." 

He  closed  the  door,  and,  as  the  glide  of  his  sandals  died  away  in 
the  echoing  cloisters,  I  leaned  forth  to  spread  my  expanding  heart 
in  the  upward  and  boundless  light  of  the  moon — for  I  seemed  to 
wish  never  again  to  lose,  in  the  wasteful  forgetfulness  of  sleep, 
the  consciousness  that  I  was  loved  by  Stephania. 

#  %  #  ¥r  #  ¥r  * 

I  was  journeying  the  next  day,  alone,  toward  Yenice.  I  had 
left  written  adieux  for  the  party  at  Vallambrosa,  pleading  to  my 
friends  an  unwillingness  to  bear  the  pain  of  a  formal  separation. 
Betwixt  midnight  and  morning,  however,  I  had  written  a  parting 
letter  for  Stephania,  which  I  had  committed  to  the  kind  envoy  ing 
of  Father  Ludovic,  aird  thus  ii  ran  : — 

"  When  you  read  this,  Stephania,  I  shall  be  alone  with  the 
thought  of  you,  travelling  a  reluctant  road,  but  still  with  a  bur- 
then in  my  heart  which  will  bring  me  to  you  again,  and  which 
even  now  envelopes  my  pang  of  separation  in  a  veil  of  happi- 
ness. I  have  been  blessed  by  Heaven's  mercy  with  the  power 
to  know  that  you  love  me.  Were  you  not  what  you  are,  I  could 
not  venture  to  startle  you  thus  with  a  truth,  which,  perhaps,  you 
have  hardly  confessed  in  waking  reality  to  yourself ;  but  you  are 
one  of  those  who  are  coy  of  no  truth  that  could  be  found  to  have 
lain  without  alarm  in  your  own  bosom  ;  and,  with  those  beloved 
hands  pressed  together  with  the  earnestness  of  the  clasp  of 
prayer,  you  will  say,  '  yes,  I  love  him  !' 

"  I  leave  you  now,  not  to  put  our  love  to  trial,  and  still  less  in 
the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  phrase,  to  prepare  to  wed  you.  The 
first  is  little  needed,  angel?  in  heaven  well  know.  The  second  is  a 


A  PLAIN   MAN  S  LOVE.  370 


thought  which  will  be  in  time,  when  I  have  done  the  work  on  which 
I  am  newly  bent  by  the  inspiration  of  love — the  making  myself  what 
you  think  me  to  be.  Oh,  Stephania !  to  feel  encouraged,  as  God 
has  given  me  strength  to  feel,  that  I  may  yet  be  this — that  I  may 
yet  bring  you  a  soul  brought  up  to  the  standard  you  have  raised, 
and  -achieve  it  by  effort  in  self-denial,  and  by  the  works  of  honor 
and  goodness  that  are  as  possible  to  a  man  in  obscurity  and  pov- 
erty as  to  his  brother  in  wealth  and  distinction — this  is  to  me  new 
life,  boundless  enlargement  of  sphere,  food  for  a  love  of  which, 
alas !  I  was  not  before  worthy. 

"  I  have  told  you  unreservedly  what  my  station  in  life  is — 
what  my  hopes  are,  and  what  career  I  had  marked  out  for  strug- 
gle. I  shall  go  on  with  the  career,  though  the  prizes  I  then 
mentally  saw  have,  since,  faded  in  value  almost  as  much  as  my 
purpose  is  strengthened.  Fame  and  wealth,  my  pure  Stephania, 
are  to  you,  as  they  now  can  only  be  to  me,  larger  trusts  of  service 
and  duty ;  and,  if  I  hope  they  will  come  while  other  aims  are 
sought,  it  is  because  they  will  confer  happiness  on  parents  and 
friends,  who  mistakenly  suppose  them  necessary  to  the  winner  of 
your  heart.  I  hope  to  bring  them  to  you.  I  know  that  I  should 
come  as  welcome  without  them. 

"While  I  write — while  my  courage  and  hope  throb  loud  in 
the  pulses  oi  my  bosom — I  can  think,  even  happily,  of  separa- 
tion. To  leave  you,  the  better  to  return,  is  bearable — even  plea- 
surable— to  the  heart's  noonday  mood.  But  I  have  been  steeped, 
for  a  summer  now,  in  a  presence  of  visible  and  breathing  loveli- 
ness, (that  you  cannot  forbid  me  to  speak  of,  since  language  is  too 
poor  to  out-color  truth,)  and  there  will  come  moments  of  depres- 
sion— twilights  of  deepening  and  undivided  loneliness — hours  of 


380  LEISURE  STORY. 


illness,  perhaps — and  times  of  discouragement  and  adverse  cloud- 
ings over  of  Providence — when  I  shall  need  to  be  remembered 
with  sympathy,  and  to  know  that  I  am  so  remembered.  I  do 
not  ask  you  to  write  to  me.  It  would  entail  difficulties  upon  you, 
and  put,  between  us,  an  interchange  of  uncertainties  and  possible 
misunderstandings.  But  I  can  communicate  with  you  by  a  surer 
medium,  if  you  will  grant  a  request.  The  habits  of  your  family 
are  such  that  you  can,  for  the  first  hour  after  midnight,  be  always 
alone.  Waking  or  sleeping,  there  will  then  be  a  thought  of  me 
occupying  your  heart,  and — call  it  a  fancy  if  you  will — I  can 
come  and  read  it,  on  the  viewless  wings  of  the  soul. 

"  I  commend  your  inexpressible  earthly  beauty,  dear  Stepha- 
nia,  and  your  still  brighter  loveliness  of  soul,  to  God's  angel,  who 
has  never  left  you.  Farewell !  You  will  see  me  when  I  am 
worthy  of  you — if  it  be  necessary  that  it  should  be  first  in  heaven, 
made  so  by  forgiveness  there. 

Cell  of  St.  Eusebius,  ValLvnbrosa — day-breaking. 


Great  Romance  Coming— A  Book  for  the  Times! 


Or  Woman's  Rights  and  Spiritualism 

ILLUSTRATING    THE    FOLLIES    AND    DELUSIONS    OF  THE 
CENTURY. 

BY    FRED.    FOLIO, 

"  This  is  the  age  of  oddities  let  loose." 

A  beautiful  12n?o.  vol.,  400  pp.  with  ten  illustrations  by  Coffin, 

Cloth,  gilt,  $1,25. 

ALDM  &  BEARDSLEY,  Auburn  and  Rochester,  N,  Y,, 

Publishers. 
Advance  Opinions  of  the  Press. 

*  *  None  will  be  more  anxious  to  read  it  than  those  who  practice 
the  follies  it  illustrates,  and  their  name  is  legion.  The  book  will  have  a 
run. — Rochester  Union. 

*  *  *  This  book  is  precisely  what  the  "times"  demand — a  decided  "hit," 
and  will  accomplish  much  good.     We  predict  for  her  a  brilliant  career. 
Success  to  "Fred  Folio." — Oxford  Times. 

*  *    *    The  subject  and  its  appositeness  to  the  excitements  of  the  day, 
well  lead  the  publishers  to  expect  a  large  and   prompt  sale.    Whether  we 
do  or  do  not   know  FRED.  FOLIO— we  may  state  hereafter.—  Utica  Morn 
ing  Herald. 

*  *    *    If  here   is  not  a  budget  of  fun,  we  are  mistaken.     No  work  has 
been  announced  of  late  that  will  be  so  readily  sought  for  as  Lucy  Boston 
— Rome  Sentinel. 

»  *  *  If  "Fred.  Folio"  is  as  fortunate  in  "illustrating"  as  selecting  his 
theme,  well  may  the  publishers  announce  it  "A  book  for  the  times."  We 
hope  for  an  early  introduction  to  "Lucy." — Albany  Argus. 

'  *  *  A  more  appropriate  subject  for  a  witty  pen  could  not  be  found.  If 
"Fred  Folio,"  (of  whom  we  know  nothing,)  has  done  justice  to  his  sub- 
ject, the  publishers  will  have  a  busy  time  in  supplying  the  demand.  We 
hope  to  see  "Lucy"  on  the  course  soon,  and  shall  be  greatly  surprised  if 
"Uncle  Tom"  is  not  left  behind,  in  the  run  she  is  destined  to  make  — 
Binghamton  Daily  Republican. 

*  *    *    Tho  title  and  character  of  the  forthcoming  work  will  ensure  for  it 
an  extensive  sale.  That  it  will  be  well  worth  reading,  we  have  a  sufficient 
guarantee   in   the  good   taste   and   proverbial  caution  of- the  enterprising 
publishers. — Auburn  Daily  American. 

*  *    *    Such  an  opening  ibr  a  capital  burlesque  does  not  often   present  it- 
self.    If  Fred   Folio  is  equal   *o  the  task  assumed,  look  out  for  a  side- 
splitting romance.     There  will  be  no  end  to  the  sale  until  everybody  has 
perused  it. —  Watercille  Journal. 

*  *    *    A  fit  subject  for  a  most  ludicrous  "illustration,"  and  this  is  what 
we  judge  the  above  announced  book  to  be.    "We  shall   look  for  "Lucy 
Boston,"   with   much  interest,   and  expect  to -enjoy  a  hearty   laugh  ou 
making  her  acquaintance. — Daily  Evening  Watch-Toirer,  Adrian,  Mich. 

*  *  •  *     The  book  will  be  sought  after  with  avidity,  and  command  an  un- 
precedented sale. — (Jkitienango  Herald. 

*  *    *    A  prolific  and  "taking"  theme,  truly,  and  one  which  a  master 
pen  could  make  much  of.     We  have  an  inkling  of  who  Fred.  Folio  is,  and 
know  him  to  bo  possessed  of  the  requisite  talent  to  weave  into  a  brilliant 
fabric  the  'Follies  and  Delusions  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.' — Oneida  Chief. 


Four  Thousand  in  Thirty  Days! 

TWO  ERAS  OF  FRANCE 

TOUK  SffdDMIES 


One  volume  I2mo.,  (uniform  with  Lewie  and  Pearl  Fishing,) 
368  pages. 

%*  In  the  Stories  of  the  Revolution,  the  author  has  detailed 
the  mournful  history  of  the  "  Dauphin."  and  presented  a  summa- 
ry of  the  evidence  so  far  discovered,  in  regard  to  that  most  inter- 
esting historical  question— the  identity  of  the  Rev.  Eleazer  Wil- 
liams with  Louis  XVII. 

Muslin,  Gilt,  $1,  Gilt  Edges,  $1,25,  Full  Gilt  Edges  &  Sides,  $1,7§. 

ALDEN.BEARDSLEY  &.  Co.,  Auburn,  N.  Y.,         ;  D  ,,.  , 
WANZER,  BEARDSLEY  &  Co.,  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  (  *•"*" 

NOTICES    OF    THE    PRESS. 

*  .  *    *    We  have  read  this  volume  with  a  good  degree  of  satisfaction 
and  interest.    *    *    *    The  soul-stirring  events  of  the  incarceration  of  the 
Dauphin,  Prince  Louis  XVII.  his  probable  escape  through  the  aid  of  the 
friends  of  the  reigning  King,  and  the  evidence  pro  and  con,  relating  to 
the  claims  of  Rev.  Eleazer  Williams,  now  a  missionary  in  this  country, 
to  be  the  identical  person — the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne  of  France,  in 
place  of  the  present  incumbent. — Ontario  Messenger. 

*  *    *    A  most  interesting  volume.    We  need  but  mention  the  fact 
that  the  author  has  selected  for  his  stones  two  of  the  most  important 
periods  in  the  annals  of  France.    To  the  general  reader,  as  well  as  to 
the  scholar,  this  portion  of  French  history  is  confessedly  remarkable  for 
its  intense  interest. — Syracuse  Journal. 

*  *     *     The  author  treats  of  the  Williams  Dauphin  qupstion,  and  has 
stated  the  arguments,  and  pronounced  it  "  at  least  highly  probable"  that 
Mr.  W.  is  the  Dauphin.     This  volume  will  be  found  a  very  attractive  one 
to  young  readers,  and  should  have  a  place  in  all  the  libraries  for  young 
men. — Evening  Mirror,  New-  York. 

f  These  stories  traverse  one  of  the  most  deeply  interesting  pe- 
riods of  French  History.  *  *  A  fine  steel  engraving  of  the  xeverend 
gentleman  prefaces  the  volume. — The  Medina  Whig. 

*  *    *    Thrilling  events.    The  revolution  of  1789  stands  distinguished 
for  deep  and  world-wide  interest.    *    *    The  fate  of  the  helpless  infant 
Dauphin  has  excited  the  deepest  emotions  of  the  civilized  world.    What- 
ever relates  to  these  events  is  read  with  interest.    *    *    *    It  is,  there- 
fore, with  peculiar  pleasure  that  we  have  perused  the  late  issue.    Full 
of  startling  incident,  and  withal  bearing  the  stamp  of  truth  on  all  its 
pages,  it  cannot  fail  to  entertain  and  instruct  him  who  sits  down  to  its 
perusal. — Lima  Visitor. 


»  *  *  Ut  remarkable  and  intense  interest  to  the  general  reade-  and 
the  scholar.  *  *  *  Its  contents  are  worthy  of  examination. — Palmyra 
Glee  Book. 

*  *    *    The  facts  which  are  given  to  prove  the  identity  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liams with  the  Dauphin,  are  of  an  exceedingly  interesting  character,  and 
deserve  a  careful  examination.     The  extraordinary  resemblance  which 
the  Indian  Missionary  bears  to  the  portraits  of  Louis  XVI.   and  Louis 
XV11I.  is  not  the  least  remarkable  part  of  the  matter.     We  commend 
this  readable  book  to  the  attention  of  our  friends,  as  one  well  worthy  of 
notice. — Fred.  Douglass'  Paper,  Rochester. 

*  *    *    Two  of  the  most  interesting  periods  in  all  thfc  nistory  of  that 
nation.    *    *    *     Some  of  the  more  striking  points  in  the  history  of  those 
events. — Rochester  Daily  Advertiser. 

*  *    *     The  sketches  are  written  in  pleasant  style,  and  are  authen- 
tic.    *    *     *    It  can  be   read  with   pleasure  and  profit  by  all  persons 
who  would  have  a  correct  statement  of  two  most  important  events. — 
Rochester  Daily  American. 

*  *    *  *  The  fate  of  the  Hugenots  of  France — and  the  mysterious  his- 
rory  of  the  Dauphin  or  son  of  Louis  XIV.,  constitute  the  points  of  attrac- 
tion in  this  book — The  Wesleyan,  Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

*  *    *    These  are  portions  of  history  of  remarkable  interest.    *    * 

*  Every  new  book  upon  the  subject  is   eagerly  snatched  up  by  the 
public,  especially  by  a  lively  and  graphic  pen,  like  the  one  which  drew 
ihese  sketches.    The  work  is  replete  with  interest,  and  will  repay  a  pe- 
rusal.   *    *    *    The  author's  object  has  been  to  re-produce   these  great 
eras  with  vividness  and  freshness,  rather  than  to  express  any  novel  views 
respecting  them.    He  has  certainly  produced  vivid  pictures,  and  con- 
densed a  variety  of  historic   information  that  ought  to  be  in  every  read- 
er's possession.     The  idea  is  a  capital  one,  which  ought  to  be  more  fully 
carried  out.    The  reader  may  be  assured  of  a  very  impressive  and  reada- 
ble book.— AT.  Y.  Tribune. 

*  *    *    The  volume  will  be  found  a  very  attractive  one  to  young 
readers  and  should  have  a  place  in  all  the  libraries  for  young  men. — N. 
Y.  Mirror. 

*  *    *    This  is  a  book  of  great  interest  and  excellence.    It  contains 
two  stories  ;  but  each  one  is  full  of  stirring  events  j  each  developes  an 
era  in  the  history  of  France. — Boston  Traveller. 

This  work  is  of  great  interest  and  of  usefulness  to  the  general  reader, 
the  student  and  statistician.  It  is  a  sketch  of  Biographies,  thrilling  in- 
cidents and  recitals,  replete  with  Historical  Fact  and  valuable  informa- 
tion, divested  of  the  prolixity  which  necessarily  appertains  to  standard 
Historic  works.  *  *  *  We  commend  the  book  as  a  digest  of  Histo- 
ry.—  The  American  Citizen. 


Six  Thousand  in  Sixty  Days!       Dickens1  New  Be  ok! 


Comprising  selections  from  that  admirable  publication,  "Dick- 

ens' Household  Words." 
FIRST  SERIES.—  1  vol.  12rao.,  (uniform  with  Lewie,)  price  $1.00 

ALDEN,  BEARDSLEY  &  Co.,  Auburn,  N.  Y.,          )  „ 
WANZER,  BEARDSLEY  &  Co.,  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  1  PuMtsAen 

This  volume  is  the  first  in  a  series  gathered  from  the  same  pub 
lication.  It  is  enriched  with  an  admirable  likeness  of  DICKENS, 
engraved  for  this  work.  The  Publishers  commend  the  volume  as 
pure  in  sentiment,  wholesome  in  morals,  and  abounding  in  such 
incident  and  interest  as  cannot  fail  to  secure  a  friendly  reception 
and  a  wide  circulation  with  American  readers.  (Second  series 
will  be  published  July  1st,  1854.) 

So  say  the  Press—  Short  Extracts  from  Lengthy  Notices. 

It  is  not  a  story  of  pearl  diving  in  the  Indian  seas,  but  a  choice  collec- 
tion of  pearls  fished  from  Dickens'  Household  Words,  and  strung  together 
as  an  ornament  for  the  library  and  the  parlor.  *  *  *  *  Such  a  selec- 
tion of  Dickens'  own  gems  is  quite  a  favor  to  his  admirers  in  the  United 
States.  *  *  *  *  The  story  of  Lizzie  Leigh  is  alone  worth  the  price 
of  the  volume.  —  N.  Y.  Independent. 

It  was  a  good  thought  of  the  publishers  to  collect  the  best  stories  of  the 
Household  Words  into  acceptable  volumes,  printed  in  large  new  type,  on 
good  paper,  to  please  fastidious  readers  like  ourselves,  and  to  entice  even 
aged  people  to  the  perusal.  *  *  *  This  series  should  command  a 
large  circulation,  if  good  taste  in  the  choice  of  fictitious  literature  has 
not  died  out  with  the  success  of  Hot  Corn  and  similar  atrocities.  —  N.  Y. 
Times. 

*  *    *    The  book  contains  a  charming  selection  of  the  best  stories 
from  "  Dickens'  Household  Words."     *    *    *     Most  valuable  and  inter- 
esting publication,  handsomely  printed  in  the  large  type,  open  page,  which 
are  happily  superseding   the  absurd,   crowded,  and    illegible  pages  which 
the  cheap  publication  system  has  imposed  upon  the  American  public.  — 
New  York  Day  Book. 

These  stories,  selected  from  Dickens'  Household  Words,  make  a  hand 
eome  volume,  with  a  fine  likeness  of  their  author.  It  is  a  capital  thought 
to  gather  up  such  of  those  interesting  papers  as  wiil  be  of  most  interest 
to  the  American  reader.  —  Providence  Daily  Post. 

*  *    *    In  gathering  these  choice  stories  the  selection  has  been  made 
of  such  as  furnish  the  most  brilliancy  and  value.     *     *    *     Replete  with 
incident  and  absorbing  interest,  from  beginning  to  end.    And   what  is 
more  and  better,  the  lessons  they  teach  are  of  the  purest  morality.     * 

*  *    The  stories  have  point  and  force,  >md  will  be  read  by  all,  old  and 
voung,  with  delight  and  profit.  —  Auburn  Daily  Advertiser. 


/ 


iff  H 

HI 


